809 Quotes by William Hazlitt

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

The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others.

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51.

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.