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The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Giving
French
Hearty
Good
English
Scotch
Exist
Germans
Taking
Plausible
Courtly
Seem
Reserved
Decorous
Alone
Irish
Natured
Seems
Polite
Spaniards
Country
Offense
Italians

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Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
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Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
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It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
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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.
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People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.
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When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.
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By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.
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To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.
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A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
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If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
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Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.
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The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.
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The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
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Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.
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Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.
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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
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Experience makes us wise.
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A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.
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What is popular is not necessarily vulgar and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.
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The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.
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