William Hazlitt

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects and discovering other peoples weaknesses.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

A gentle word a kind look a good natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

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.

To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before.

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

As is our confidence, so is our capacity.

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

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves will in general become of no more value than their dress.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.

Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

Elegance is something more than ease more than a freedom from awkwardness and restraint. It implies precision a polish and a sparkling which is spirited yet delicate.

There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self love in others and exacts it in return from them.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.

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

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.

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.

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.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

Zeal will do more than knowledge.

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!

Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.

The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.

Reflection makes men cowards.

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

Dandyism is a variety of genius.

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

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

No young man ever thinks he shall die.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

The more we do, the more we can do.

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.

Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.

Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.

Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.

There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

Cunning is natural to mankind. It is the sense of our weakness and an attempt to effect by concealment what we cannot do openly and by force.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

We often repent the good we have done as well as the ill.

One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.

Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

The busier we are the more leisure we have.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too if he could.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.

We dread lifes termination as the close not of enjoyment but of hope.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends.

The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.

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

Popularity is neither fame nor greatness.

Principle is a passion for truth.

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.

The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

We must be doing something to be happy.

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves.

The public have neither shame or gratitude.