Quote

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Habit
Hardens
Taking
Refine
Cases
Mechanical
Sense
Facility
Away
Acquired
Others
Sensations
Doe
Edge
Keener
Giving
Edges
Quicken

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A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.
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To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.
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A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.
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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
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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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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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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.
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The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased.
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Our contempt for others proves nothing but the illiberality and narrowness of our own views.
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A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.
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Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled as by the greatest ability or courage.
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Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
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Experience makes us wise.
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Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.
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What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.
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He who is as faithful to his principles as he is to himself is the true partisan.
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A thought must tell at once, or not at all.
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