William Hazlitt quote: "Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it poures down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity."

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best a...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer -- that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was prin...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot for...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes i...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right path, he stands still.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a so...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinki...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shake...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If you think you can win, you can. Faith is necessary to victory.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty prid...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the di...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for -- they swear to that...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
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

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an ine...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books a...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those who can command themselves command others.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Good temper is an estate for life.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue f...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Gallantry to women -- the sure road to their favor -- is nothing but the appearance of extreme devot...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

As is our confidence, so is our capacity.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The essence of poetry is will and passion.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-int...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a foo...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the me...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Life is the art of being well deceived.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering the weaknesses of others.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of histor...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the diff...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He wh...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

No truly great person ever thought themselves so.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are re...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undese...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The public have neither shame or gratitude.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves will, in general, become of no more value ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Fashon is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, aff...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the small...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the d...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

The busier we are the more leisure we have.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Man is a make-believe animal -- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The best way to procure insults is to submit to them.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The are of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocri...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts m...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Grace in women has more effect than beauty.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because the...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same t...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one -- they show one another off to the best ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Comedy naturally wears itself out -- destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotio...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Zeal will do more than knowledge.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is inmortal.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about
WILLIAM HAZLITT

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to f...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A mighty stream of tendency.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have kn...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your per...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudice...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religi...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who as...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merel...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Reflection makes men cowards.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the wo...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can pa...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The more we do, the more we can do.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habit...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocris...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imaginati...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because th...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Gallantry to women--the sure road to their favor--is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The public have neither shame nor gratitude.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain f...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A wise traveler never despises his own country.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indee...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or to...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those who are fond of settling things to rights have no great objection to seeing them wrong.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of mil...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their da...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an ind...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The worst old age is that of the mind.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must see...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain f...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

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

There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: b...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the ins...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

One commending a Tayler for his dexteritie in his profession, another standing by ratified his opin...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

I should like to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in mind
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them
WILLIAM HAZLITT

A person may be indebted for a nose or an eye, for a graceful carriage or a voluble discourse, to a ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern - why then should it trouble us that a t...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Those who from a constant change and dissipation of outward objects have not a moment's leisure left...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have
WILLIAM HAZLITT

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of...
WILLIAM HAZLITT

Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it poures down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity.

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William Hazlitt

Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it poures down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity.

William Hazlitt

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