Quote

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.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Merely
Circumstances
Choose
Friend
Particular
Flatters
Often
Circumstance
Self
Mistress
Love
Excellence

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?
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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
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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.
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Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
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Envy is littleness of soul.
William Hazlitt
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To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
William Hazlitt
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The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.
William Hazlitt
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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
William Hazlitt
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A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.
William Hazlitt
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There cannot be a surer proof of low origin, or of an innate meanness of disposition, than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel.
William Hazlitt
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He who draws upon his own resources easily comes to an end of his wealth.
William Hazlitt
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As is our confidence, so is our capacity.
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One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey I can enjoy society in a room but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.
William Hazlitt
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To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.
William Hazlitt
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Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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No truly great person ever thought themselves so.
William Hazlitt
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There is evil poured upon the earth from the overflowings of corruption-- Sickness, and poverty, and pain, and guilt, and madness, and sorrow But, as the water from a fountain riseth and sinketh to its level, Ceaselessly toileth justice to equalize the lots of men.
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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The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.
William Hazlitt