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A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
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More quotes by William Hazlitt

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What are the publications that succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
William Hazlitt
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I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.
William Hazlitt
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It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.
William Hazlitt
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Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.
William Hazlitt
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No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.
William Hazlitt
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One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey I can enjoy society in a room but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.
William Hazlitt
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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
William Hazlitt
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There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.
William Hazlitt
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Those only deserve a monument who do not need one that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
William Hazlitt
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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.
William Hazlitt
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The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
William Hazlitt
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Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
William Hazlitt
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People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.
William Hazlitt
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Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William Hazlitt
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We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
William Hazlitt
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Do not quarrel with the world too soon for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.
William Hazlitt
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Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
William Hazlitt
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Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.
William Hazlitt