Quote

Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Appeals
Forced
Vanity
Driven
Shifts
Conceit
Appeal
Admiration

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey I can enjoy society in a room but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.
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Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
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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.
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The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.
William Hazlitt
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The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William Hazlitt
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The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.
William Hazlitt
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The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
William Hazlitt
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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.
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We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favorably of their characters when any misfortune happens to them and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes.
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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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I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
William Hazlitt
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We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living.
William Hazlitt
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Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for.
William Hazlitt
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A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death.
William Hazlitt
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A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.
William Hazlitt
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We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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That which is not, shall never be that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
William Hazlitt
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When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
William Hazlitt
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Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.
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Well I've had a happy life.
William Hazlitt