William Hazlitt

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

But fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath — tied to no rule, and bound to conform to …

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.

Defoe says, that there were a hundred thousand stout country-fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance…

Again, there is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion.

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up.

We all wear some disguise — make some professions — use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may …

Indeed some degree of affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body; we must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.

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

Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favor) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.

Horus non numero nisi serenas—"I count only the hours that are serene"—is the motto of a sundial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.

If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.

Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the …

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.

We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.

Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.

So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.