Quotes from William Hazlitt

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.

He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another.

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

Grace in women has more effect than beauty.

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.

I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.

Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.

Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

The greatest reverses of fortune are the most easily borne from a sort of dignity belonging to them.

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