Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Whatever
Contradiction
Lasts
Folly
Last
Capable
Spirit
Effects
Obstinacy
Good
Highest
Excites
Cause
Pitch
Wisdom
Heroism
Causes
Producing

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him.
William Hazlitt
Image
The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
William Hazlitt
Image
General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.
William Hazlitt
Image
Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
William Hazlitt
Image
I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.
William Hazlitt
Image
But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen.
William Hazlitt
Image
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.
William Hazlitt
Image
A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.
William Hazlitt
Image
An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
William Hazlitt
Image
It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.
William Hazlitt
Image
The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.
William Hazlitt
Image
We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.
William Hazlitt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.
William Hazlitt
Image
The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.
William Hazlitt
Image
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.
William Hazlitt
Image
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
William Hazlitt
Image
A mighty stream of tendency.
William Hazlitt
Image
Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.
William Hazlitt