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The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Argue
Business
Sensible
Things
Distinction
Men
Arguing
World
Mets
Cobweb
People
Instead
Cobwebs
Ought
Distinctions
Spinning
Society

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them
William Hazlitt
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The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
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Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.
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 severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
William Hazlitt
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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
William Hazlitt
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Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night.
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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
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The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.
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There is evil poured upon the earth from the overflowings of corruption-- Sickness, and poverty, and pain, and guilt, and madness, and sorrow But, as the water from a fountain riseth and sinketh to its level, Ceaselessly toileth justice to equalize the lots of men.
William Hazlitt
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Life is the art of being well deceived.
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The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, No. There was a fire in the room.
William Hazlitt
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We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other.
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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When one can do better than everyone else in the same walk, one does not make any very painful exertions to outdo oneself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.
William Hazlitt
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We prefer ourselves to others, only because we a have more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person's.
William Hazlitt
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Rules and models destroy genius and art.
William Hazlitt
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Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.
William Hazlitt
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When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.
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