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People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Opinions
Sake
Seem
Opinion
Talk
Talking
Seems
Expressing
People
Maintain

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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.
William Hazlitt
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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.
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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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
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A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.
William Hazlitt
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The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.
William Hazlitt
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To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.
William Hazlitt
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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. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern. Why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
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.
William Hazlitt
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The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.
William Hazlitt
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No man can thoroughly master more than one art or science.
William Hazlitt
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The greatest reverses of fortune are the most easily borne from a sort of dignity belonging to them.
William Hazlitt
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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
William Hazlitt
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The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.
William Hazlitt
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The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
William Hazlitt
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In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
William Hazlitt
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Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.
William Hazlitt
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The worst old age is that of the mind.
William Hazlitt
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As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt