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

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Deception
Discovering
Weakness
Knowledge
Concealing
Art
Weaknesses
People
Cunning
Defects
Deceit

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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To die is only to be as we were before we were born yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
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We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight.
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We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.
William Hazlitt
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The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.
William Hazlitt
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Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.
William Hazlitt
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Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
William Hazlitt
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The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.
William Hazlitt
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To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.
William Hazlitt
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The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.
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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
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Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.
William Hazlitt
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It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.
William Hazlitt
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That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
William Hazlitt
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Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.
William Hazlitt
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We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
William Hazlitt
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Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
William Hazlitt
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Virtue steals, like a guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart.
William Hazlitt
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The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles of POETICAL JUSTICE it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase, though they do not share in the spoil.
William Hazlitt
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Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
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Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.
William Hazlitt