William Hazlitt

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

— William Hazlitt

The busier we are the more leisure we have.

— William Hazlitt

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

— William Hazlitt

Life is the art of being well deceived.

— William Hazlitt

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

— William Hazlitt

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.

— William Hazlitt

Knowledge is pleasure as well as power.

— William Hazlitt

Dandyism is a species of genius.

— William Hazlitt

The youth is better than the old age of friendship.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

— William Hazlitt

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

We dread life's termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.

— William Hazlitt

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.

— William Hazlitt

When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.

— William Hazlitt

“Even a highwayman, in the way of trade, may blow out your brains, but if he uses foul language at the same…

— William Hazlitt

Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses,…

— William Hazlitt

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.

— William Hazlitt

It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that…

— William Hazlitt

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires…

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and…

— William Hazlitt

We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never…

— William Hazlitt

In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is…

— William Hazlitt

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It…

— William Hazlitt

Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into…

— William Hazlitt

Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies…

— William Hazlitt

Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or…

— William Hazlitt

The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as…

— William Hazlitt

Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with…

— William Hazlitt

Learning is the knowledge of that which is not generally known to others, and which we can only derive at second-hand from…

— William Hazlitt

Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within…

— William Hazlitt

There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions…

— William Hazlitt

“Thus, to give an obvious instance, if I have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled into a…

— William Hazlitt

As a general rule, those who are dissatisfied with themselves will seek to go out of themselves into an ideal world. Persons…

— William Hazlitt

When we hear complaints of the wretchedness or vanity of human life, the proper answer to them would be that there is…

— William Hazlitt

“The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on…

— William Hazlitt

Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters: it is only while living…

— William Hazlitt

It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition ... This last act of our…

— William Hazlitt