Quote

Every man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Every
Opinion
Gale
Long
Lasts
Confirm
Men
Last
Popularity
Time
Tell
Contemporary
Cannot
Distance
May
Judging
Feel
Numbers
Feels
Wants

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.
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Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.
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It is a false principle that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.
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Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
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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.
William Hazlitt
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He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight.
William Hazlitt
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To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.
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Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for.
William Hazlitt
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One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.
William Hazlitt
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An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself.
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Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.
William Hazlitt
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The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.
William Hazlitt
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We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.
William Hazlitt
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Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
William Hazlitt
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It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui.
William Hazlitt
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Principle is a passion for truth.
William Hazlitt
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The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.
William Hazlitt
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Painters... are the most lively observers of what passes in the world about them, and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds.
William Hazlitt
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The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.
William Hazlitt
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Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
William Hazlitt