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The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Fear
Suppression
Also
Motives
May
Vice
Motive
Vices
Punishment
Necessary
Suspends
Virtue
Finer

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The public have neither shame or gratitude.
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It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things.
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The worst old age is that of the mind.
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In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
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No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
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Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
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A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.
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A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
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Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.
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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.
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We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.
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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.
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If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.
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There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.
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Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
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We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.
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The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.
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He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.
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Reflection brakes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment.
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The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
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