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A felon could plead benefit of clergy and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the neck verse, which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Benefits
Aloud
Usually
Clergy
Felon
Reading
Verse
Aptly
Book
Verses
Psalm
Enough
Neck
Felons
Necks
Termed
Benefit
Plead
Saved
Psalms

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence and we become misers in this respect.
William Hazlitt
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The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.
William Hazlitt
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Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.
William Hazlitt
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The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.
William Hazlitt
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Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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Habit is necessary to give power.
William Hazlitt
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To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
William Hazlitt
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Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.
William Hazlitt
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If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.
William Hazlitt
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Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.
William Hazlitt
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A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
William Hazlitt
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The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.
William Hazlitt
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I can enjoy society in a room but out of doors, nature is company enough for me
William Hazlitt
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Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.
William Hazlitt
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The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.
William Hazlitt
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The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased.
William Hazlitt
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No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.
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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Rules and models destroy genius and art.
William Hazlitt