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To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.

William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Painter
Philosopher
Writer
Wm. Haslett
William Carew Hazlitt
Purpose
Makes
Applied
Character
Purposes
Nothing
Display
Great
Powers
Greatness
Unless
Greatest

More quotes by William Hazlitt

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It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.
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Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern. Why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
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We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
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People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.
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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.
William Hazlitt
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But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen.
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A mighty stream of tendency.
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...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.
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The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
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The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.
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Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.
William Hazlitt
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The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
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Books are a world in themselves, it is true but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.
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Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body.
William Hazlitt
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Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.
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Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
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We go on a journey to be free of all impediments to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
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There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. I count only the hours that are serene..
William Hazlitt
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I am then never less alone than when alone
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