Quotes from William Hazlitt

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

Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite

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

As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.

Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.

Life is the art of being well deceived.

Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.

The thing is plain. 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 practice. The rest is affectation and imposture

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.

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity.

Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.

We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.

One would imagine that books were, like women, the worse for being old that they open their leaves more cordially that the spirit of enjoyment wears out with the spirit of novelty and that after a certain age, it is high time to put them on the s.

Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.

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 are of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

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

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in mind

The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice

Poverty, labor, and calamity are not without their luxuries, which the rich, the indolent, and the fortunate in vain seek for.

We may give more offense by our silence than even by impertinence.

A wise traveler never despises his own country.