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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.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
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Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
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More quotes by William Hazlitt

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From the height from which the great look down on the world all the rest of mankind seem equal.
William Hazlitt
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We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly or idiomatically.
William Hazlitt
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The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
William Hazlitt
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To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.
William Hazlitt
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The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.
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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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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Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.
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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Lying is the strongest acknowledgement of the force of truth.
William Hazlitt
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Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
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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In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.
William Hazlitt
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It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play.
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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Poverty, labor, and calamity are not without their luxuries, which the rich, the indolent, and the fortunate in vain seek for.
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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Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night.
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
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Good temper is an estate for life.
William Hazlitt