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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
Wit
Ill
Ridiculing
Talk
Absurdly
Less
Unconsciously
Funny
Consciously
Making
Absurdity
Others
Pointing
Nature
Humour

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
William Hazlitt
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The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.
William Hazlitt
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The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.
William Hazlitt
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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
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The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.
William Hazlitt
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Those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left.
William Hazlitt
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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
William Hazlitt
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People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake.
William Hazlitt
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Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
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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The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
William Hazlitt
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The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
William Hazlitt
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Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.
William Hazlitt
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We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.
William Hazlitt
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Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.
William Hazlitt
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Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.
William Hazlitt
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The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.
William Hazlitt
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It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
William Hazlitt
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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
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I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object.
William Hazlitt