Quotes from William Hazlitt

Learning is its own exceeding great reward.

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.

The busier we are the more leisure we have.

The more a man writes, the more he can write.

A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it.

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.

The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends.

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.

Men of gravity are intellectual stammerers, whose thoughts move slowly.

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.

No really great man ever thought himself so.

Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.

Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.

Painting for a whole morning gives one as excellent an appetite for one's dinner, as old Abraham Tucker acquired for his by riding over Banstead Downs.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.

There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.