809 Quotes by William Hazlitt

I have known persons without a friend – never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for – they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?

Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith’s bellows: they take breath but are not alive.

When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face, – compare notes and chat the hour away.

We dread life’s termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.

We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others.

Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite.

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken.

People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy’s sake.