Quote

It is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Believe
Gives
Scope
Imagination
Passions
Passion
Raise
Whatever
Raises
Hate
English
Bugbear
Fear
Merely
Implicitly
Order
England
Insulting
Giving
Necessary
Govern

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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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Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
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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.
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The only true retirement is that of the heart the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they are young or old and they die as they have lived, with graceful resignation.
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Those only deserve a monument who do not need one that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
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It is a false principle that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.
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That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
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The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass to their daily affairs and experience to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.
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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.
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Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
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The essence of poetry is will and passion.
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It is well there is no one without fault for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to s different species.
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The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.
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Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
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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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