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Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Eloquence
Wit
Indifference
Fact
Facts

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other.
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The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.
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Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.
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The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.
William Hazlitt
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There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.
William Hazlitt
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The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
William Hazlitt
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The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
William Hazlitt
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Popularity disarms envy in well-disposed minds. Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others who feel that the world has done them justice. When success has not this effect in opening the mind, it is a sign that it has been ill deserved.
William Hazlitt
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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
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Learning is its own exceeding great reward and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.
William Hazlitt
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One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.
William Hazlitt
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Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman dignity is proper to noblemen and majesty to kings.
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
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Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
William Hazlitt
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We are governed by sympathy and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility
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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Life is a continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot.
William Hazlitt
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A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry.
William Hazlitt
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Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps.
William Hazlitt
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Reflection makes men cowards.
William Hazlitt