There is some virtue in almost every vice except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is, at the same time, a compliment to it.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Hypocrisy
Zeal will do more than knowledge.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Knowledge, Enthusiasm
Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: One liners, Hypocrisy
The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Power
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 esteem but by lowering their neighbors.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Man
Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Punctuality
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: Happiness
The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way: an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Adversity, Enthusiasm, Difficulties
Few people make much noise after their deaths who did not do so while living.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Fame
There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Prejudice
Principle is a passion for truth and right.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Principles
Science is the desire to know causes.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Science
There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order—that is according to their notions of the matter—and hiding things, lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. One complained that whenever his maid-servant had been in his library, he could not get comfortably to work again, for several days.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Order
Elegance is something more than ease—more than a freedom from awkwardness and restraint.—It implies a precision, a polish, and a sparkling which is spirited, yet delicate.
—William Hazlitt
Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Ability
The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Affectation, Understanding
Prejudice is never easy unless it can pass itself off for reason.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Prejudice
There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Flattery
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Value, Pain
The essence of poetry is will and passion.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Poetry
As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Hypocrisy, Lies
The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Friendship
Of all persecutions, that of calumny is the most intolerable. Any other kind of persecution can affect our outward circumstances only, our properties, our lives; but this may affect our characters forever.
—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
Topics: Realistic Expectations, Humor, Acceptance, Laughter
People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy’s sake.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Secrecy
Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Jealousy
An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself.
—William Hazlitt
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone – but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Friendship
Grace in women has more effect than beauty.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Grace
Comedy naturally wears itself out—destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Comedy
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- A. C. Benson English Essayist
- Joseph Addison English Poet, Playwright, Politician
- Thomas de Quincey English Essayist, Critic
- Samuel Johnson British Essayist
- Edwin Percy Whipple American Literary Critic
- John Dryden English Poet
- Giacomo Leopardi Italian Poet
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge English Poet
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