Quote

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Chain
Chains
Habit
Around
Heart
Coils
Like
Gnaw
Stifle
Serpent

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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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?
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A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
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No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.
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I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.
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There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth.
William Hazlitt
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Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.
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A certain excess of animal spirits with thoughtless good-humor will often make more enemies than the most deliberate spite and ill-nature, which is on its guard, and strikes with caution and safety.
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Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.
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That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
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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.
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The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
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Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
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The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
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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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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
William Hazlitt
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An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence a vain man, in order that it may.
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The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
William Hazlitt
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The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
William Hazlitt
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As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable.
William Hazlitt
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
William Hazlitt