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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Habit
Virtue
Nature
Men
Mask
Vice
Vices

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.
William Hazlitt
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Charity, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Next to putting it in a bank, men like to squander their superfluous wealth on those to whom it is sure to be doing the least possible good.
William Hazlitt
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Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken
William Hazlitt
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Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong.
William Hazlitt
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Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.
William Hazlitt
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Faith is necessary to victory.
William Hazlitt
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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
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A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
William Hazlitt
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Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.
William Hazlitt
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Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.
William Hazlitt
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A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.
William Hazlitt
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We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
William Hazlitt
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Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
William Hazlitt
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A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the great springs of life, hope and fear.
William Hazlitt
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So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.
William Hazlitt
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We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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Elegance is something more than ease it is more than a freedom from awkwardness or restraint. It implies, I conceive, a precision, a polish, a sparkling, spirited yet delicate.
William Hazlitt
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We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once.
William Hazlitt
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If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
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