William Hazlitt

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.

It is well there is no one without fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to s different species.

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

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.

Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled as by the greatest ability or courage.

People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

We prefer ourselves to others, only because we a have more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person's.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.

A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.

As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.

Without life there can be no action — no objects of pursuit — no restless desires — no tormenting passions. Hence it is that we fondly cling to it — that we dread its termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.

There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.