809 Quotes by William Hazlitt

Avarice is the miser’s dream, as fame is the poet’s.

We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility.

The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine.

The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous – the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.

The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of – the last he does not concern himself about.

Let a man’s talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.

Comedy naturally wears itself out – destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it.

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.