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Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Faces
Instant
Palpable
Truth
Tells
Contradict
Power
Dare
Uttered
Persons
Effect
Boldly
Person
Effects
Falsehood
Opinion
Sympathy
Face
Hardly
Lying
Opinions
Disbelieve

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
William Hazlitt
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Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.
William Hazlitt
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A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Life is the art of being well deceived and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
William Hazlitt
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The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William Hazlitt
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The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.
William Hazlitt
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A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them
William Hazlitt
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Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
William Hazlitt
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There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
William Hazlitt
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The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.
William Hazlitt
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You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
William Hazlitt
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If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
William Hazlitt
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Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
William Hazlitt
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I can enjoy society in a room but out of doors, nature is company enough for me
William Hazlitt
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We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favorably of their characters when any misfortune happens to them and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes.
William Hazlitt
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To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.
William Hazlitt