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The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Minds
Worm
Reading
Verbal
Others
Wraps
Book
Reflected
Mind
Worms
Things
Shadows
Sees
Glimmering
Shadow
Generalities

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
William Hazlitt
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If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
William Hazlitt
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Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.
William Hazlitt
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To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.
William Hazlitt
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When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.
William Hazlitt
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By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
William Hazlitt
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A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes.
William Hazlitt
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To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.
William Hazlitt
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Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.
William Hazlitt
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A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.
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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The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
William Hazlitt
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True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less.
William Hazlitt
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Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
William Hazlitt
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A man who is determined never to move out of the beaten road cannot lose his way.
William Hazlitt
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Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman dignity is proper to noblemen and majesty to kings.
William Hazlitt
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Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
William Hazlitt
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There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.
William Hazlitt