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Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Fool
Level
Dwarfs
Levels
Fools
Wise
Giants
Imagine
Absolutes
Society
Absolute
Hard
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Men
Mets

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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 characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.
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We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
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If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
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If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.
William Hazlitt
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The public have neither shame or gratitude.
William Hazlitt
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There cannot be a surer proof of low origin, or of an innate meanness of disposition, than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel.
William Hazlitt
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That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
William Hazlitt
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Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.
William Hazlitt
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We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once.
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The most learned are often the most narrow minded.
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We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
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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.
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Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
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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The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.
William Hazlitt
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A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.
William Hazlitt
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Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.
William Hazlitt
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
William Hazlitt
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A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.
William Hazlitt