Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

William Hazlitt

English Writer, Literary and Art Critic, Social Commentator, Philosopher and Author

"The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings."

"The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do it he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him."

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

"The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves."

"The public have neither shame nor gratitude."

"The secret of our self-love is just the same as that of our liberality and candor. Wee prefer ourselves to others only because we have a more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person’s."

"The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use."

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

"The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery."

"There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the immortals."

"There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion. This makes nothing in their favor, but is a proud compliment to man’s nature. Whatever he is or does, he cannot entirely efface the stamp of the divinity on him. Let him strive ever so, he cannot divest himself of his natural sublimity of thought and affection, however he may pervert or deprave it to ill."

"The soul of conversation is sympathy."

"The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about."

"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 ashamed of itself."

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

"There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it."

"There is one virtue in almost every vice except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is, at the same time, a compliment to it."

"Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by; natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps."

"Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others."

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

"Those who can command themselves command others."

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

"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."

"Those who are fond of setting things right have no great objection to seeing them wrong."

"To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth."

"Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion t the resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter; we can persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them."

"Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap."

"We are not hypocrites in our sleep."

"We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be wrong."

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

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

"We can scarcely hate anyone that we know."

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

"We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects."

"We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people."

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

"We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone."

"We must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary to us than thought."

"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."

"We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering up on insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it."

"A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself."

"We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment."

"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, and it is the desire of the end that will point out the means."

"All uneducated people are hypocrites."

"Any one is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies."

"A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common."

"As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers in this respect."

"Be great in act, as you have been in thought. Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action."

"By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages."

"Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had an have no wish for."