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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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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Human
Genius
Humans
Learning
Study
Reading
Read
Insignificance
Force
Commentators
Wish
Shakespeare
May
Intelligence

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.
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Power is pleasure and pleasure sweetens pain.
William Hazlitt
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There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
William Hazlitt
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One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
William Hazlitt
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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
William Hazlitt
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Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.
William Hazlitt
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An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself.
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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The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends.
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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The discussing the characters and foibles of common friends is a great sweetness and cement of friendship.
William Hazlitt
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I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.
William Hazlitt
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He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another.
William Hazlitt
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Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.
William Hazlitt
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We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once.
William Hazlitt
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The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.
William Hazlitt
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One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey but I like to go by myself.
William Hazlitt
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Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.
William Hazlitt
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Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken
William Hazlitt