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We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly or idiomatically.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Well
Till
Never
Cease
Think
Language
Thinking
Difficult
Speak
Natives
Anything
Correctly
Reason
Spontaneity
Wells
Manner

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas.
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He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another.
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Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for - they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
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One said a tooth drawer was a kind of unconscionable trade, because his trade was nothing else but to take away those things whereby every man gets his living.
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I am proud up to the point of equality everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
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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.
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Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
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Silence is one great art of conversation.
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Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it
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Without life there can be no action — no objects of pursuit — no restless desires — no tormenting passions. Hence it is that we fondly cling to it — that we dread its termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.
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It is not fit that every man should travel it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
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As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable.
William Hazlitt
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To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
William Hazlitt
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Knowledge is pleasure as well as power.
William Hazlitt
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That which is not, shall never be that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
William Hazlitt
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We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves yet nothing gives such offense or creates so many enemies, as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance.
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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I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.
William Hazlitt