William Hazlitt

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

The Tory is one who is governed by sense and habit alone. He considers not what is possible, but what is real; he gives might the preference over right. He cries long life to the conqueror, and is ever strong upon the stronger side — the …

I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference.

I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man : I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could.

The love of fame, as it enters at times into his mind, is only another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority — that of time.

He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.

The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakespeare, every thing.

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.

Grace is the absence of every thing that indicates pain or difficulty, or hesitation or incongruity.

Grace in women has more effect than beauty.

Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.

There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. For this last implies not only the practical conviction that it is right, but the theoretical assumption that it cannot be wrong.

A party-feeling of this kind once formed will insensibly communicate itself to other topics; and will be too apt to lead its votaries to a contempt for the opinions of others, a jealousy of every difference of sentiment, and a disposition …

There is a natural tendency in sects to narrow the mind.

They are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; a studied madness.