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A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the great springs of life, hope and fear.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Public
Situation
Laborious
Hope
Mechanical
Fear
Springs
Without
Secure
Great
Anxiety
Life
Spring
Office

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Painters... are the most lively observers of what passes in the world about them, and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds.
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Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.
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The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.
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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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The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.
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To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
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We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.
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Without life there can be no action — no objects of pursuit — no restless desires — no tormenting passions. Hence it is that we fondly cling to it — that we dread its termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.
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We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
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I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.
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One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.
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Hope is the best possession.
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Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.
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Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.
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A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.
William Hazlitt
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The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
William Hazlitt
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To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it.
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The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.
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In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.
William Hazlitt