Quotes from William Hazlitt

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

Time,--the most independent of all things.

There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

Reflection makes men cowards.

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal.

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.

Love and joy are twins or born of each other.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.

Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.

Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.

To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

Love may turn to indifference with possession.

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can.