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The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Less
Attainment
Embarrassing
Assumption
Merit
Actual
Genius
Easier
Talent
Effectual

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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.
William Hazlitt
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Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
William Hazlitt
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One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.
William Hazlitt
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To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.
William Hazlitt
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Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.
William Hazlitt
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Death cancels everything but truth and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.
William Hazlitt
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Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise of all arguments the most unanswerable.
William Hazlitt
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Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
William Hazlitt
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Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
William Hazlitt
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When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.
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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Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.
William Hazlitt
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Time,--the most independent of all things.
William Hazlitt
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Prosperity is a great teacher adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind privation trains and strengthens it.
William Hazlitt
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Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
William Hazlitt
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Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.
William Hazlitt
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The more we do, the more we can do.
William Hazlitt
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The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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Believe all the good you can of everyone. Do not measure others by yourself. If they have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one.
William Hazlitt
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If our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded.
William Hazlitt