Quote

The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste.

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
Improvement
Taste
Thing
Diffusion

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.
William Hazlitt
Image
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
William Hazlitt
Image
Well I've had a happy life.
William Hazlitt
Image
We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
William Hazlitt
Image
Despair swallows up cowardice.
William Hazlitt
Image
Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.
William Hazlitt
Image
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.
William Hazlitt
Image
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.
William Hazlitt
Image
We can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!
William Hazlitt
Image
The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.
William Hazlitt
Image
What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.
William Hazlitt
Image
...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.
William Hazlitt
Image
Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.
William Hazlitt
Image
The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.
William Hazlitt
Image
The more we do, the more we can do the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
Image
The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it.
William Hazlitt
Image
It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.
William Hazlitt