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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.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Hope
Dread
Action
Passions
Without
Enjoyment
Tormenting
Life
Desires
Termination
Pursuit
Fondly
Expectations
Cling
Close
Restless
Objects
Hence

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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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Success in business is seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power which is untractable and self-willed, but to the greatest degree of commonplace capacity.
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Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end.
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Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.
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To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it.
William Hazlitt
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The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him.
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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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If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
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The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.
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We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.
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Lying is the strongest acknowledgement of the force of truth.
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The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.
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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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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
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The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
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He who is as faithful to his principles as he is to himself is the true partisan.
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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.
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Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.
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The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
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