William Hazlitt Famous Quotes
Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.
"Fashon is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath -- tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute."
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was 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
"To think ill of mankind, and not to wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue."
"Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune."
"We often choose a friend as we do a mistress -- for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love."
"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"
"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."
"The more we do, the more we can do."
"If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory."
"If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago."
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
No really great man ever thought himself so.
"There is nothing more likely to drive a person mad than...an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable."
"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."
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
Those who can command themselves command others.
"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."
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.
"First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily."
Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
"When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest."
The way to procure insults is to submit to them a man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.
"Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel."
William Hazlitt Quotations
"Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible."
Mary McLeod Bethune
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
Elbert Hubbard
Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.
Woodrow Wilson
What power has love but forgiveness In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise
William Carlos Williams
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."
Henry Louis Mencken
A book is a story for the mind. A song is a story for the soul.
Eric Pio
There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares
Mark Twain
"We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know."
W H Auden
"In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme."
Roy Hattersley
"Of course we all have our limits, but how can you possibly find your boundaries unless you explore as far and as wide as you possibly can I would rather fail in an attempt at something new and uncharted than safely succeed in a repeat of something I have done."
A E Hotchner