William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlittwas an English writer, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth10 April 1778
cannot classes distinct hands imagined might money observed people
There are two classes of people that I have observed who are not so distinct as might be imagined -- those who cannot keep their own money in their hands, and those who cannot keep their hands from other people's.
argument compel distinct fair people persuade reason surely
It is surely a distinct question, what you can persuade people to do by argument and fair discussion, and what you may lawfully compel them to do, when reason and remonstrance fail.
excellent met people
An indigestion is an excellent common-place for two people that never met before.
attentions ceremony paying people receive return shall soon tired toward treated
If we use no ceremony toward others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
fall imagination people
When the imagination is continually led to the brink of vice by a system of terror and denunciations, people fling themselves over the precipice from the mere dread of falling.
blessing past people
It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements - not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.
knowing people sake
People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake.
talking people sake
People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.
people quality common
Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated.
commitment keeping-promises people
Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
art knowledge people
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
self-esteem thinking people
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
people common-sense community
Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.
government law people
Wherever the Government does not emanate...from the people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps, the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be hatred to the people.