Quotes from William Hazlitt

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

The more we do, the more we can do.

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out of malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavourable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.

All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know; and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.

None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.

We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter; we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.

Those who are fond of setting things to rights have no great objection to setting them wrong.

Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

The truly proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.

The public have neither shame nor gratitude.

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 might have been.

It is essential to the triumph of reform that it shall never succeed.

We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.

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

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.

Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.