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
Serpent
Chain
Chains
Habit
Around
Heart
Coils
Like
Gnaw
Stifle

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.
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That which is not, shall never be that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
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We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
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Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.
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Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
William Hazlitt
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We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us.
William Hazlitt
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Painting for a whole morning gives one as excellent an appetite for one's dinner, as old Abraham Tucker acquired for his by riding over Banstead Downs.
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When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it.
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Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.
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The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him.
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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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There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass no day without a line-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
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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.
William Hazlitt
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Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.
William Hazlitt
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Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body.
William Hazlitt
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One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
William Hazlitt
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We can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!
William Hazlitt
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A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.
William Hazlitt
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Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
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There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. I count only the hours that are serene..
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