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The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Knowledge
Origin
Rather
Acknowledge
Desire
False
Science
None
Thing
Accept
Ignorance
Accepting
Causes
Unwillingness

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass.
William Hazlitt
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Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
William Hazlitt
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Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.
William Hazlitt
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There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. I count only the hours that are serene..
William Hazlitt
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The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Hope is the best possession.
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 severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
William Hazlitt
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Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.
William Hazlitt
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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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Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.
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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In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason. If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable.
William Hazlitt
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To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.
William Hazlitt
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To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.
William Hazlitt
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
William Hazlitt
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Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.
William Hazlitt
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We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.
William Hazlitt
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Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
William Hazlitt
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The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas.
William Hazlitt