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Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
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Obstinacy
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Whatever
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More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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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Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
William Hazlitt
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The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.
William Hazlitt
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There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass no day without a line-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
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There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. I count only the hours that are serene..
William Hazlitt
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Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.
William Hazlitt
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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
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Virtue steals, like a guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart.
William Hazlitt
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The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.
William Hazlitt
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Languages happily restrict the mind to what is of its own native growth and fitted for it, as rivers and mountains bond countries or the empire of learning, as well as states, would become unwieldy and overgrown.
William Hazlitt
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Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.
William Hazlitt
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Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William Hazlitt
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As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
William Hazlitt
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People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.
William Hazlitt
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Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
William Hazlitt
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Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.
William Hazlitt
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To die is only to be as we were before we were born yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
William Hazlitt
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Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled as by the greatest ability or courage.
William Hazlitt
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To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.
William Hazlitt
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The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
William Hazlitt