William Hazlitt

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.

Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.

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.

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.

The worst old age is that of the mind.

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.