Quote

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.

William Hazlitt

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Judging
Justice
Interest
Away
Confounds
Power
Familiarity
Take
Traits
Distinction
Prejudice

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
William Hazlitt
Image
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end.
William Hazlitt
Image
Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.
William Hazlitt
Image
A man who does not endeavour to seem more than he is will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary.
William Hazlitt
Image
Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense a substitute for true knowledge.
William Hazlitt
Image
People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.
William Hazlitt
Image
There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.
William Hazlitt
Image
Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
William Hazlitt
Image
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence a vain man, in order that it may.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.
William Hazlitt
Image
The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
Life is the art of being well deceived and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
William Hazlitt
Image
Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
William Hazlitt
Image
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust hatred alone is immortal.
William Hazlitt
Image
Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
William Hazlitt
Image
The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.
William Hazlitt
Image
Despair swallows up cowardice.
William Hazlitt
Image
No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.
William Hazlitt