Quote

Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Looking
Teeth
Dark
Findings
Water
Finding
Pouring
Words
Stones
Hill
Facts
Argument
Rolling
Trying
Empty
Hills
Time
Prove
Stone
Like
Causes
Passed

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
William Hazlitt
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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 self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.
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The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.
William Hazlitt
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Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.
William Hazlitt
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Good temper is an estate for life.
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A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.
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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.
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The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
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Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
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Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.
William Hazlitt
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Our contempt for others proves nothing but the illiberality and narrowness of our own views.
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The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.
William Hazlitt
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Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.
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The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.
William Hazlitt
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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
William Hazlitt
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No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.
William Hazlitt
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The public have neither shame or gratitude.
William Hazlitt
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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
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It is not fit that every man should travel it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
William Hazlitt