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People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Leave
Nature
Cannot
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People
Persist
Weary
Vice
Vices
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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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The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, No. There was a fire in the room.
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Political truth is libel religious truth, blasphemy.
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We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.
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Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident wit is the product of art and fancy.
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The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.
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The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
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There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.
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Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity.
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As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence and we become misers in this respect.
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There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.
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Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.
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The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
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Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.
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A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
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When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
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We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves yet nothing gives such offense or creates so many enemies, as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance.
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Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.
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Dandyism is a variety of genius.
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Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.
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