Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William HazlittRead
Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the futility of efforts that yield no tangible results and the frustration of seeking understanding in the face of overwhelming uncertainty.
In this introspective quote, Hazlitt contemplates the seemingly pointless endeavours of arguing without evidence and seeking answers where none seem to exist. He uses vivid imagery to describe his frustrations, likening his efforts to pouring water into sieves or rolling a stone uphill, emphasizing the cyclical nature of such struggles and the difficulty of extracting meaningful insights from an ambiguous reality.
Themes
FutilityEffortUnderstandingFrustrationPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of intellectual pursuits and their outcomes.
More from William Hazlitt
All quotes →The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William HazlittRead
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
William HazlittRead
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
William HazlittRead
There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. 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.
William HazlittRead
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
William HazlittRead
Similar quotes
I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
Men gladly believe what they wish. -Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
Julius CaesarRead
As you become multi-sensory, you begin to see yourself as a soul first and a personality second. You begin to experience yourself as more than a body and more than a mind. and the circumstances around you as meaningful and designed for your spiritual growth.
Gary ZukavRead
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.
Julian HuxleyRead
If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
DemocritusRead