William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was a critic and essayist, born in Maidstone, of Irish descent. Began his life as an artist, but abandoned art for letters, and contributed to the reviews. He wrote on the English poets and dramatists, the "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," "The Spirit of the Age," a "Life of Napoleon," &c. Criticism was his forte, and he ranks among the foremost devoted to that art. His life was not well regulated, his health gave way, and he died in poverty.Wisdom & Quotes
- Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
- There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
- When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.
- One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself.
- The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.
- The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
- Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
- We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.
- The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
- One is never tired of painting, because you have to set down, not what you knew already, but what you have just discovered. There is a continual creation out of nothing going on.
- The least pain in our little finger gives more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
- We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
- Political truth is a libel - religious truth, blasphemy.
- If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
- Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong.
- No young man believes he shall ever die.
Thomas Moore