William Hazlitt Quotes

We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.

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

Any one may mouth out a passage with theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts. But to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task.

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.

We cannot read the same works forever. Our honey-moon, even though we wed the Muse, must come to an end; and it is followed by indifference, if not by disgust.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the 'still, small voice' of reason.

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?

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

"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 only study his commentators. ["On the Ignorance of the Learned"]"

I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it.

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