809 Quotes by William Hazlitt

People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.

He that doth lend doth lose a friend.

I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant--without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others--and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings.

The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.

Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.

He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.

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