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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by William Hazlitt

Image
Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.
William Hazlitt
Image
The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant--without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others--and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings.
William Hazlitt
Image
The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.
William Hazlitt
Image
In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
William Hazlitt
Image
Power is pleasure and pleasure sweetens pain.
William Hazlitt
Image
Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass.
William Hazlitt
Image
Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
William Hazlitt
Image
We go on a journey to be free of all impediments to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
William Hazlitt
Image
To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
William Hazlitt
Image
The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of - the last he does not concern himself about.
William Hazlitt
Image
Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
William Hazlitt
Image
To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.
William Hazlitt
Image
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.
William Hazlitt
Image
You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university.
William Hazlitt
Image
It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
William Hazlitt
Image
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
William Hazlitt
Image
Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.
William Hazlitt
Image
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
William Hazlitt
Image
We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.
William Hazlitt
Image
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.
William Hazlitt