Prosperity is a great teacher, adversity a greater.
– William Hazlitt
The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering
appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain,
downright, simple, honest truth.
– William Hazlitt
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
– William Hazlitt
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of
goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
– William Hazlitt
The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
– William Hazlitt
Zeal will do more than knowledge.
– William Hazlitt
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
– William Hazlitt
Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion to the
resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great, but from a sense of the difficulties we
have to encounter: We can persevere in nothing great, but from a pride in overcoming them.
– William Hazlitt
The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman is this: The one thinks
everything right that is French, while the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
– William Hazlitt
As is our confidence, so is our capacity.
– William Hazlitt
The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the
same test; for it is on that on which our success in life depends.
– William Hazlitt
The old maxim: There are three things necessary to success in life – Impudence! Impudence!
Impudence!
– William Hazlitt
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!
– William Hazlitt
The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
– William Hazlitt
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the
difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
– William Hazlitt
No really great man ever thought himself so.
– William Hazlitt
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
– William Hazlitt
The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is
concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of
humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.
– William Hazlitt
Grace in women has more effect than beauty.
– William Hazlitt
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to do it myself. I can
enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never
less alone than when alone.
– William Hazlitt
The more we do, the more we can do.
– William Hazlitt
The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which
calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.
– William Hazlitt
The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.
– William Hazlitt
If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
– William Hazlitt
There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to
entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of
them as we please – that is as they please or displease us.
– William Hazlitt
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
– William Hazlitt
The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices
behind.
– William Hazlitt
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
– William Hazlitt
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a
monument in the minds and memories of men.
– William Hazlitt
Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
– William Hazlitt
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn
your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits!
– William Hazlitt
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
– William Hazlitt
Those who can command themselves, command others.
– William Hazlitt
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols – it is all that they ask;
the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than
indifferent to them.
– William Hazlitt
To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with
contempt while we are living.
– William Hazlitt
Travel’s greatest purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
– William Hazlitt
Man is a make-believe animal: He is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
– William Hazlitt
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
– William Hazlitt
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of
history.
– William Hazlitt
In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought
impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to
be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
– William Hazlitt
Good temper is an estate for life.
– William Hazlitt
The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
– William Hazlitt
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
– William Hazlitt
The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world,
who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what
things ought to be.
– William Hazlitt
One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
– William Hazlitt
Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it
pours down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to
their wonder and credulity.
– William Hazlitt
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
– William Hazlitt
Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
– William Hazlitt
Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches
perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
– William Hazlitt
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is
necessary to follow, in order to lead.
– William Hazlitt
If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see
the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.
– William Hazlitt
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we
when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!
– William Hazlitt
Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them
to do.
– William Hazlitt
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
– William Hazlitt
To a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue
must seem equally ridiculous.
– William Hazlitt
Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty
pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and
refresh our wings in it for future flight.
– William Hazlitt
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
– William Hazlitt
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
– William Hazlitt
No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in
a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end
prove wiser than he.
– William Hazlitt
We may be willing to tell a story twice but we are never willing to hear it more than once.
– William Hazlitt
The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he
exacts.
– William Hazlitt
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
– William Hazlitt
Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
– William Hazlitt
Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not
made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
– William Hazlitt
Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
– William Hazlitt
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope;
and few are reduced so low as that.
– William Hazlitt
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses.
– William Hazlitt
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself
hypocrisy.
– William Hazlitt
You know more of a road by having travelled it then by all the conjectures and descriptions in
the world.
– William Hazlitt
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.
– William Hazlitt
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an
end. There was a time when we were not: This gives us no concern. Why, then, should it
trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
– William Hazlitt
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
– William Hazlitt
Gallantry to women – the sure road to their favor – is nothing but the appearance of extreme
devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in
yourself as being able to contribute toward it.
– William Hazlitt
Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more angry at
undeserved than at deserved good fortune.
– William Hazlitt