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Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.William Hazlitt
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The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.William Hazlitt
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The old maxim... "there are three things necessary to success in life-- Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!William Hazlitt
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The path of genius is free, and its ownWilliam Hazlitt
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Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of ourWilliam Hazlitt
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He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.William Hazlitt
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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.William Hazlitt
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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 Hazlitt
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Words are the only things that last for ever.William Hazlitt
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The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.William Hazlitt
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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.William Hazlitt
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THE rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand (in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience, ) and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it. Let us think what we please of what we really find, but pr .William Hazlitt
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The perceiving our own weaknesses enables us to give others excellent advice, but it does not teach us to to reform ourselves.William Hazlitt
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Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.William Hazlitt
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Never so sure our rapture to create As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate.William Hazlitt
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Good-nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.William Hazlitt
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A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.William Hazlitt
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A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannuated desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last steps of it, nor is the size of a building to be judged of from the last stone that is added to it. It is neither the first nor last hour of our existence, but the space that parts these two - not our exit nor our entrance upon the stage, but what we do, feel, and think while there - that we are to attend to in pronouncing sentence upon it. .William Hazlitt
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He understands the texture and meaning of the visible universe, and 'sees into the life of things, ' not by the help of mechanical instruments, but of the improved exercise of his faculties, and an intimate sympathy with Nature. The meanest thing is not lost upon him, for he looks at it with an eye to itself, not merely to his own vanity or interest, or the opinion of the world. Even where there is neither beauty nor use–if that ever were–still there is truth, and a sufficient source of gratification in the indulgence of curiosity and activity of mind. The humblest printer is a true scholar; and the best of scholars - the scholar of Nature. .William Hazlitt
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The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.William Hazlitt