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The discussing the characters and foibles of common friends is a great sweetness and cement of friendship.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Friends
Common
Character
Foibles
Great
Cement
Discussing
Sweetness
Friendship
Characters

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.
William Hazlitt
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In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.
William Hazlitt
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A man who does not endeavour to seem more than he is will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary.
William Hazlitt
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I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object.
William Hazlitt
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Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense a substitute for true knowledge.
William Hazlitt
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The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice.
William Hazlitt
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We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.
William Hazlitt
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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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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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There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
William Hazlitt
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Reflection brakes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment.
William Hazlitt
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The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.
William Hazlitt
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To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.
William Hazlitt
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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.
William Hazlitt
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Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
William Hazlitt
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There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
William Hazlitt
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Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
William Hazlitt
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A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
William Hazlitt
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The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
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