William Hazlitt Quotes

• 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

  Topics in Genius, Knowledge, Wisdom

  Tags in Learning, Hope, Reading, Wishing

• There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Friendship, Love

  Tags in Rules, Force

• Anyone who has passed though 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

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Fool

• To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem… ridiculous.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Superior, Pretensions, Race, Virtue

• The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Vice, Hypocrisy, Repentance

• Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Worth, Poetry, Remembering

• The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Hope, Neighbors

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Adorn, Happiness, Fire

• An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Injury, Vain

• Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Genius, Humanity

  Tags in Rusts, Use

• Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Country, Death

  Tags in Bigotry, Time, Fight

• Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Favors, Ready

• Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Adversity, Teacher, Prosperity

• We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Defects, Ourselves, Ridicule, Tired, Turning

• No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Greatness, Truly

• No truly great person ever thought themselves so.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Modesty, Truly

• We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bear, Deprived, Self Image

• Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Contempt, Admiration, Edge, Familiarity

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Antiquity, Fame

• A wise traveler never despises his own country.

  William Hazlitt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Travel

William Hazlitt (154)

Birth:	10th April, 1778
Death:	18th September, 1830
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Essayist, Painter, Philosopher, Writer

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Births

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• 1967 - Sheryl Lee
• 1946 - Nicholas Stern
• 1946 - Paul Davies
• 1744 - James Sullivan

Deaths

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• 1994 - Richard Nixon
• 2005 - Philip Morrison
• 1945 - Kathe Kollwitz
• 1944 - William H. O`Connell