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[Science is] the desire to know causes.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Causes
Desire
Science

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, No. There was a fire in the room.
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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.
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We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
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Spleen can subsist on any kind of food.
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There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
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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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Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?
William Hazlitt
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The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.
William Hazlitt
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We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us.
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The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
William Hazlitt
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Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.
William Hazlitt
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Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William Hazlitt
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The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
William Hazlitt
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One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.
William Hazlitt
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The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant--without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others--and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings.
William Hazlitt
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There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
William Hazlitt
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A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.
William Hazlitt
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A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.
William Hazlitt
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In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
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