Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Never
Judgment
Dares
Opinion
Catches
Public
Lest
Sound
Echoes
Voice
Awe
Form
Idle
Deafened
Firsts
Till
Rumour
First
Dare
Rumours

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
William Hazlitt
Image
Love may turn to indifference with possession.
William Hazlitt
Image
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.
William Hazlitt
Image
To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.
William Hazlitt
Image
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
William Hazlitt
Image
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
William Hazlitt
Image
Those who have had none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to vary the prospect before them.
William Hazlitt
Image
To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
William Hazlitt
Image
Books wind into the heart.
William Hazlitt
Image
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
William Hazlitt
Image
Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.
William Hazlitt
Image
A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.
William Hazlitt
Image
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.
William Hazlitt
Image
By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.
William Hazlitt
Image
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
William Hazlitt
Image
Do not quarrel with the world too soon for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.
William Hazlitt
Image
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
William Hazlitt
Image
There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
William Hazlitt
Image
An honest man is respected by all parties.
William Hazlitt
Image
Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.
William Hazlitt