Quotes from William Hazlitt

The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty; but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.

Knowledge is pleasure as well as power.

The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking we must go over to theirs and it is necessary to follow in order to lead.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.

That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.

Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.

There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.