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
choice man virtue
A man must make his choice not only between virtue and vice, but between different virtues.
thinking wish virtue
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
race ridiculous virtue
To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.
vices heroism virtue
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
men vices virtue
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
speak virtue ill
The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
men genius virtue
Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.
anniversary birthday celebrate man money monuments notice
When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!
work
When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated.
afterwards anywhere borrow english-critic life spend traveling
I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.
playing
The world has been doing little else but playing at make-believe all its lifetime.
answering belief believe difference feeling left media paid spent swear truth turns
Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for -- they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
cleanse either interests reform regularly renew revolution sacrificed whenever
So society, when out of order, which it is whenever the interests of the many are regularly and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, must be repaired, and either a reform or a revolution cleanse its corruptions and renew its elasticity.
forget largest truest
Those who have the largest hearts, have the soundest understandings; and he is the truest philosopher who can forget himself.