None are completely wretched but those who are without hope.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
He is little short of a hero, who perseveres in thinking well of a friend who has become a butt for slander.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
An honest man is respected by all parties.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Death is the greatest evil; because it cuts off hope.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Silence is one great art of conversation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us through the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defense.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress, for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
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.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
We find many things, to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Conceit is the most contemptible and one of the most odious qualities in the world. It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Hope is the best possession.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
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.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
When the imagination is continually led to the brink of vice by a system of terror and denunciations, people fling themselves over the precipice from the mere dread of falling.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Those who command themselves, command others.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Complete Works
Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, "Thoughts on Taste", The Edinburgh Magazine, July 1819
There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims
There are some persons who never succeed from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
