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Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Kind
Ever
Wonder
Drive
Natured
Make
Look
Secret
Accomplish
Defeats
Always
Human
Word
Defeat
Persuade
Humans
Individual
Miracle
Revolt
Looks
Order
Smile
Wonders
Heart
Cannot
Pride
Miracles
Work
Ends
Respect
Tyranny
Every
May
Violence
Gentle
Revolts

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.
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The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
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The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.
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Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.
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True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less.
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An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself.
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There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.
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There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
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Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
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There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.
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You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
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Malice often takes the garb of truth.
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We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
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Elegance is something more than ease it is more than a freedom from awkwardness or restraint. It implies, I conceive, a precision, a polish, a sparkling, spirited yet delicate.
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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..
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Spleen can subsist on any kind of food.
William Hazlitt
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A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.
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Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
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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.
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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