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It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Triumph
Reform
Essential
Essentials
Succeed
Never

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.
William Hazlitt
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The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
William Hazlitt
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To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
William Hazlitt
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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
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We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
William Hazlitt
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There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
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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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.
William Hazlitt
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Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.
William Hazlitt
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A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.
William Hazlitt
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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
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If our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded.
William Hazlitt
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The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
William Hazlitt
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Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.
William Hazlitt
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No man can thoroughly master more than one art or science.
William Hazlitt
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What are the publications that succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
William Hazlitt
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There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass no day without a line-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
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The seat of knowledge is in the head of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
William Hazlitt
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Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.
William Hazlitt