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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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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Else
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Outdo
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Oneself
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One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
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We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people.
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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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Prejudice is never easy unless it can pass itself off for reason.
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The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.
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Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern. Why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
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Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.
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Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.
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We can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!
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The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.
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Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?
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Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
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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.
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There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
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Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.
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Zeal will do more than knowledge.
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Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.
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Hope is the best possession.
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Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
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An honest man is respected by all parties.
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