Quote

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

William Hazlitt

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Virtue
Confession
Less
Modesty
Thought
Sincerity
Seems
Virtues
Savors
Good
Honesty
Thankless
People
Weakness
Ostentation
Failing
Failings
Office
Weaknesses

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves for a while from, the ties and objects that recall them but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth.
William Hazlitt
Image
Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.
William Hazlitt
Image
Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
William Hazlitt
Image
The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
William Hazlitt
Image
Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child.
William Hazlitt
Image
Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.
William Hazlitt
Image
There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
William Hazlitt
Image
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
Image
When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves.
William Hazlitt
Image
Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body.
William Hazlitt
Image
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.
William Hazlitt
Image
There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth.
William Hazlitt
Image
Malice often takes the garb of truth.
William Hazlitt
Image
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
William Hazlitt
Image
It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.
William Hazlitt
Image
No young man ever thinks he shall die.
William Hazlitt