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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.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Thinking
Private
Judgment
Exercise
Public
Prevents
Idea
Spell
Ideas
Spells
Ever
Wit
Think
Acts

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The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
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It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things.
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Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
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The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice.
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To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
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Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
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Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
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It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
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Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.
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The worst old age is that of the mind.
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A thought must tell at once, or not at all.
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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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Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
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There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. I count only the hours that are serene..
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People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake.
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Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.
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By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.
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I am then never less alone than when alone
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Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
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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