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Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Less
Unconsciously
Funny
Consciously
Absurdity
Making
Pointing
Others
Humour
Nature
Wit
Ill
Ridiculing
Talk
Absurdly

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The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
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The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.
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Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
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The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
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If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
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One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world.
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To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.
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We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favorably of their characters when any misfortune happens to them and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes.
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Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
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A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself.
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A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.
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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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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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Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.
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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.
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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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Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.
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Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's.
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An honest man is respected by all parties.
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By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.
William Hazlitt