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We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Though
Dullness
Upon
Timid
Spirit
Malice
Persons
Joined
Pusillanimous
Person
Spirits
Fonder
Without
Wit
Bordering
Prefer
Vivacity
High
Insolence

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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Wherever the Government does not emanate...from the people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps, the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be hatred to the people.
William Hazlitt
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To die is only to be as we were before we were born yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
William Hazlitt
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Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.
William Hazlitt
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There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
William Hazlitt
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Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
William Hazlitt
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Books wind into the heart.
William Hazlitt
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We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
William Hazlitt
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Natural affection is a prejudice for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.
William Hazlitt
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The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.
William Hazlitt
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Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
William Hazlitt
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Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.
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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Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
William Hazlitt
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The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
William Hazlitt
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The secret of the difficulties of those people who make a great deal of money, and yet are always in want of it, is this-they throw it away as soon as they get it on the first whim or extravagance that strikes them, and have nothing left to meet ordinary expenses or discharge old debts.
William Hazlitt
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The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
William Hazlitt
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The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
William Hazlitt
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The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
William Hazlitt