809 Quotes by William Hazlitt

There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, if there be, they will not let you have it

By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.

To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it.

Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.

Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.