Background Image

...

A Man Is A Hypocrite Only When He Affects To Take A Delight In What He Does Not Feel, Not Because He Takes A Perverse Delight In Opposite Things.

-William Hazlitt

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

A Man Is A

William Hazlitt

...

A Man Is A Hypocrite Only When He Affects To Take A Delight In What He Does Not Feel, Not Because He Takes A Perverse Delight In Opposite Things.

Views: 66480

Topic

More From William Hazlitt

Grace Is The Absence Of Everything That Indicates Pain Or Difficulty, Hesitation Or Incongruity.

Do Not Keep On With A Mockery Of Friendship After The Substance Is Gone - But Part, While You Can Part Friends. Bury The Carcass Of Friendship: It Is Not Worth Embalming.

Corporate Bodies Are More Corrupt And Profligate Than Individuals, Because They Have More Power To Do Mischief, And Are Less Amenable To Disgrace Or Punishment. They Feel Neither Shame, Remorse, Gratitude, Nor Goodwill.

We Are Cold To Others Only When We Are Dull In Ourselves.

Men Will Die For An Opinion As Soon As For Anything Else.

The English (it Must Be Owned) Are Rather A Foul-mouthed Nation.

Poverty, Labor, And Calamity Are Not Without Their Luxuries, Which The Rich, The Indolent, And The Fortunate In Vain Seek For.

Love May Turn To Indifference With Possession.

We Do Not Attend To The Advice Of The Sage And Experienced Because We Think They Are Old, Forgetting That They Once Were Young And Placed In The Same Situations As Ourselves.

To Display The Greatest Powers, Unless They Are Applied To Great Purposes, Makes Nothing For The Character Of Greatness.

Kings Ought Never To Be Seen Upon The Stage. In The Abstract, They Are Very Disagreeable Characters: It Is Only While Living That They Are 'the Best Of Kings'. It Is Their Power, Their Splendour, It Is The Apprehension Of The Personal Consequences Of Their Favour Or Their Hatred That Dazzles The Imagination And Suspends The Judgement Of Their Favourites Or Their Vassals; But Death Cancels The Bond Of Allegiance And Of Interest; And Seen As They Were, Their Power And Their Pretensions Look Monstrous And Ridiculous.

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

So I Have 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.

Prejudice Is Never Easy Unless It Can Pass Itself Off For Reason.

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

We Find Many Things To Which The Prohibition Of Them Constitutes The Only Temptation.

Love Turns, With A Little Indulgence, To Indifference Or Disgust; Hatred Alone Is Immortal.

The Greatest Reverses Of Fortune Are The Most Easily Borne From A Sort Of Dignity Belonging To Them.

Our Lives Are Ruled By Impermanence. The Challenge Is How To Create Something Of Enduring Value Within The Context Of Our Impermanent Lives. Soka Gakkai Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

People Addicted To Secrecy Are So Without Knowing Why; They Are Not So For Cause, But For Secrecy's Sake.

We Trifle With, Make Sport Of, And Despise Those Who Are Attached To Us, And Follow Those That Fly From Us.

Defoe Says That There Were A Hundred Thousand Country Fellows In His Time Ready To Fight To The Death Against Popery, Without Knowing Whether Popery Was A Man Or A Horse.

Wherever The Government Does Not Emanate...from The People, The Principle Of The Government, The Esprit De Corps, The Point Of Honour, In All Those Connected With It, And Raised By It To Privileges Above The Law And Above Humanity, Will Be Hatred To The People.

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 World Has Not Entered! They Have Not Been "hurt By The Archers", Nor Has The Iron Entered Their Souls. The World Has No Hand On Them.

This Is The Test And Triumph Of Originality, Not To Show Us What Has Never Been, And What We May Therefore Very Easily Never Have Dreamt Of, But To Point Out To Us What Is Before Our Eyes And Under Our Feet, Though We Have Had No Suspicion Of Its Existence, For Want Of Sufficient Strength Of Intuition, Of Determined Grasp Of Mind To Seize And Retain It.

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward; And At The Period Of Which We Speak, It Bore Other Fruits, Not Unworthy Of It.

Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

We Do Not See Nature With Our Eyes, But With Our Understandings And Our Hearts.

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived.

The Most Insignificant People Are The Most Apt To Sneer At Others. They Are Safe From Reprisals. And Have No Hope Of Rising In Their Own Self Esteem But By Lowering Their Neighbors.

Conceit Is Vanity Driven From All Other Shifts, And Forced To Appeal To Itself For Admiration.

The Safest Kind Of Praise Is To Foretell That Another Will Become Great In Some Particular Way. It Has The Greatest Show Of Magnanimity And The Least Of It In Reality.

Do Not Quarrel With The World Too Soon; For, Bad As It May Be, It Is The Best We Have To Live In, Here. If Railing Would Have Made It Better, It Would Have Been Reformed Long Ago.

We Judge Of Others For The Most Part By Their Good Opinion Of Themselves; Yet Nothing Gives Such Offense Or Creates So Many Enemies, As That Extreme Self-complacency Or Superciliousness Of Manner, Which Appears To Set The Opinion Of Every One Else At Defiance.

Fashion Is Gentility Running Away From Vulgarity And Afraid Of Being Overtaken

First Impressions Are Often The Truest, As We Find (not Unfrequently) To Our Cost When We Have Been Wheedled Out Of Them By Plausible Professions Or Actions. A Man's Look Is The Work Of Years, It Is Stamped On His Countenance By The Events Of His Whole Life, Nay, More, By The Hand Of Nature, And It Is Not To Be Got Rid Of Easily.

The Amiable Is The Voluptuous In Expression Or Manner. The Sense Of Pleasure In Ourselves Is That Which Excites It In Others; Or, The Art Of Pleasing Is To Seem Pleased.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

A Hair In The Head Is Worth Two In The Brush.

Envy Is Littleness Of Soul.

I Hate To Be Near The Sea, And To Hear It Roaring And Raging Like A Wild Beast In Its Den. It Puts Me In Mind Of The Everlasting Efforts Of The Human Mind, Struggling To Be Free, And Ending Just Where It Began.

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.

Those Who Wish To Forget Painful Thoughts Do Well To Absent Themselves For A While From, The Ties And Objects That Recall Them; But We Can Be Said Only To Fulfill Our Destiny In The Place That Gave Us Birth.

You Shall Yourself Be Judge. Reason, With Most People, Means Their Own Opinion.

He Who Is As Faithful To His Principles As He Is To Himself Is The True Partisan.

We Are Thankful For Good-will Rather Than For Services, For The Motive Than The Quantum Of Favor Received.

To Expect An Author To Talk As He Writes Is Ridiculous; Or Even If He Did You Would Find Fault With Him As A Pedant.

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. He Does Not Beat About The Bush For Difficulties Or Excuses, But Goes The Shortest And Most Effectual Way To Work To Attain His Own Ends, Or To Accomplish A Useful Object.

A Strong Passion For Any Object Will Ensure Success, For The Desire Of The End Will Point Out The Means.

Danger Is A Good Teacher, And Makes Apt Scholars. So Are Disgrace, Defeat, Exposure To Immediate Scorn And Laughter. There Is No Opportunity In Such Cases For Self-delusion, No Idling Time Away, No Being Off Your Guard (or You Must Take The Consequences) - Neither Is There Any Room For Humour Or Caprice Or Prejudice.

Poetry Is All That Is Worth Remembering In Life.

Death Puts An End To Rivalship And Competition. The Dead Can Boast No Advantage Over Us, Nor Can We Triumph Over Them.

Envy Is The Deformed And Distorted Offspring Of Egotism; And When We Reflect On The Strange And Disproportioned Character Of The Parent, We Cannot Wonder At The Perversity And Waywardness Of The Child.

A Man Who Does Not Endeavour To Seem More Than He Is Will Generally Be Thought Nothing Of. We Habitually Make Such Large Deductions For Pretence And Imposture That No Real Merit Will Stand Against Them. It Is Necessary To Set Off Our Good Qualities With A Certain Air Of Plausibility And Self-importance, As Some Attention To Fashion Is Necessary.

One Is Always More Vexed At Losing A Game Of Any Sort By A Single Hole Or Ace, Than If One Has Never Had A Chance Of Winning It.

With Women, The Great Business Of Life Is Love; And They Generally Make A Mistake In It. They Consult Neither The Heart Nor The Head, But Are Led Away By Mere Humour And Fancy. If Instead Of A Companion For Life, They Had To Choose A Partner In A Country-dance Or To Trifle Away An Hour With, Their Mode Of Calculation Would Be Right. They Tie Their True-lover's Knot With Idle, Thoughtless Haste, While The Institutions Of Society Render It Indissoluble.

A Man's Reputation Is Not In His Own Keeping, But Lies At The Mercy Of The Profligacy Of Others. Calumny Requires No Proof.

Habit Is Necessary To Give Power.

...greatness Sympathises With Greatness, And Littleness Shrinks Into Itself.

The Most Sensible People To Be Met With In Society Are Men Of Business And Of The World, Who Argue From What They See And Know, Instead Of Spinning Cobweb Distinctions Of What Things Ought To Be.

Weakness Has Its Hidden Resources, As Well As Strength. There Is A Degree Of Folly And Meanness Which We Cannot Calculate Upon, And By Which We Are As Much Liable To Be Foiled As By The Greatest Ability Or Courage.

Nothing Gives Such A Blow To Friendship As The Detecting Another In An Untruth. It Strikes At The Root Of Our Confidence Ever After.

The Objects That We Have Known In Better Days Are The Main Props That Sustain The Weight Of Our Affections, And Give Us Strength To Await Our Future Lot.

In Some Situations, If You Say Nothing, You Are Called Dull; If You Talk, You Are Thought Impertinent And Arrogant. It Is Hard To Know What To Do In This Case. The Question Seems To Be, Whether Your Vanity Or Your Prudence Predominates.

Natural Affection Is A Prejudice; For Though We Have Cause To Love Our Nearest Connections Better Than Others, We Have No Reason To Think Them Better Than Others.

True Modesty And True Pride Are Much The Same Thing: Both Consist In Setting A Just Value On Ourselves - Neither More Nor Less.

He Who Lives Wisely To Himself And His Own Heart Looks At The Busy World Through The Loopholes Of Retreat, And Does Not Want To Mingle In The Fray.

Violent Antipathies Are Always Suspicious, And Betray A Secret Affinity.

It Is Only Necessary To Raise A Bugbear Before The English Imagination In Order To Govern It At Will. Whatever They Hate Or Fear, They Implicitly Believe In, Merely From The Scope It Gives To These Passions.

To Be Happy, We Must Be True To Nature And Carry Our Age Along With Us.

Persons Of Slender Intellectual Stamina Dread Competition, As Dwarfs Are Afraid Of Being Run Over In The Street.

I Do Not Think That What Is Called Love At First Sight Is So Great An Absurdity As It Is Sometimes Imagined To Be. We Generally Make Up Our Minds Beforehand To The Sort Of Person We Should Like, Grave Or Gay, Black, Brown, Or Fair; With Golden Tresses Or Raven Locks; - And When We Meet With A Complete Example Of The Qualities We Admire, The Bargain Is Soon Struck.

Painters... Are The Most Lively Observers Of What Passes In The World About Them, And The Closest Observers Of What Passes In Their Own Minds.

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

It Has Been The Resolution Of Mankind In All Ages Of The World. No People, No Age, Ever Threw Away The Fruits Of Past Wisdom, Or The Enjoyment Of Present Blessings, For Visionary Schemes Of Ideal Perfection. It Is The Knowledge Of The Past, The Actual Infliction Of The Present, That Has Produced All Changes, All Innovations, And All Improvements - Not (as Is Pretended) The Chimerical Anticipation Of Possible Advantages, But The Intolerable Pressure Of Long-established, Notorious, Aggravated, And Growing Abuses.

There Is Evil Poured Upon The Earth From The Overflowings Of Corruption-- Sickness, And Poverty, And Pain, And Guilt, And Madness, And Sorrow; But, As The Water From A Fountain Riseth And Sinketh To Its Level, Ceaselessly Toileth Justice To Equalize The Lots Of Men.

We Are Never So Much Disposed To Quarrel With Others As When We Are Dissatisfied With Ourselves.

Positive Thinking

The Only Impeccable Writers Are Those Who Never Wrote.

One Said A Tooth Drawer Was A Kind Of Unconscionable Trade, Because His Trade Was Nothing Else But To Take Away Those Things Whereby Every Man Gets His Living.

That Which Anyone Has Been Long Learning Unwillingly, He Unlearns With Proportional Eagerness And Haste.

We May Be Willing To Tell A Story Twice, Never To Hear It More Than Once.

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward.

The Secret Of The Difficulties Of Those People Who Make A Great Deal Of Money, And Yet Are Always In Want Of It, Is This-they Throw It Away As Soon As They Get It On The First Whim Or Extravagance That Strikes Them, And Have Nothing Left To Meet Ordinary Expenses Or Discharge Old Debts.

We Imagine That The Admiration Of The Works Of Celebrated Men Has Become Common, Because The Admiration Of Their Names Has Become So.

The Same Reason Makes A Man A Religious Enthusiast That Makes A Man An Enthusiast In Any Other Way ... An Uncomfortable Mind In An Uncomfortable Body.

The Irish Are Hearty, The Scotch Plausible, The French Polite, The Germans Good-natured, The Italians Courtly, The Spaniards Reserved And Decorous - The English Alone Seem To Exist In Taking And Giving Offense.

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

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.

Of All Virtues, Magnanimity Is The Rarest. There Are A Hundred Persons Of Merit For One Who Willingly Acknowledges It In Another.

Though Familiarity May Not Breed Contempt, It Takes Off The Edge Of Admiration.

Comedy Naturally Wears Itself Out - Destroys The Very Food On Which It Lives; And By Constantly And Successfully Exposing The Follies And Weaknesses Of Mankind To Ridicule, In The End Leaves Itself Nothing Worth Laughing At.

The Best Part Of Our Lives We Pass In Counting On What Is To Come.

We Do Not Die Wholly At Our Deaths: We Have Mouldered Away Gradually Long Before. Faculty After Faculty, Interest After Interest, Attachment After Attachment Disappear: We Are Torn From Ourselves While Living.

Man Is A Poetical Animal, And Delights In Fiction.

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

The Diffusion Of Taste Is Not The Same Thing As The Improvement Of Taste.

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food.

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.

Life Is A Continued Struggle To Be What We Are Not, And To Do What We Cannot.

Books Let Us Into Their Souls And Lay Open To Us The Secrets Of Our Own.

A Taste For Liberal Art Is Necessary To Complete The Character Of A Gentleman, Science Alone Is Hard And Mechanical. It Exercises The Understanding Upon Things Out Of Ourselves, While It Leaves The Affections Unemployed, Or Engrossed With Our Own Immediate, Narrow Interests.

One Said He Wondered That Leather Was Not Dearer Than Any Other Thing. Being Demanded A Reason: Because, Saith He, It Is More Stood Upon Than Any Other Thing In The World.

In Love We Do Not Think Of Moral Qualities, And Scarcely Of Intellectual Ones. Temperament And Manner Alone, With Beauty, Excite Love.

Indolence Is A Delightful But Distressing State; We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy. Action Is No Less Necessary Than Thought To The Instinctive Tendencies Of The Human Frame.

To Write A Genuine Familiar Or Truly English Style Is To Write As Anyone Would Speak In Common Conversation, Who Had A Thorough Command And Choice Of Words, Or Who Could Discourse With Ease, Force, And Perspicuity, Setting Aside All Pedantic And Oratorical Flourishes.

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

Art Must Anchor In Nature, Or It Is The Sport Of Every Breath Of Folly.

The Fear Of Punishment May Be Necessary To The Suppression Of Vice; But It Also Suspends The Finer Motives Of Virtue.

From The Height From Which The Great Look Down On The World All The Rest Of Mankind Seem Equal.

Experience Makes Us Wise.

Landscape Painting Is The Obvious Resource Of Misanthropy.

Landscape Painting

Let A Man's Talents Or Virtues Be What They May, He Will Only Feel Satisfaction In His Society As He Is Satisfied In Himself.

When One Can Do Better Than Everyone Else In The Same Walk, One Does Not Make Any Very Painful Exertions To Outdo Oneself. The Progress Of Improvement Ceases Nearly At The Point Where Competition Ends.

As We Are Poetical In Our Natures, So We Delight In Fable.

He Who Expects From A Great Name In Politics, In Philosophy, In Art, Equal Greatness In Other Things, Is Little Versed In Human Nature. Our Strength Lies In Our Weakness. The Learned In Books Are Ignorant Of The World. He Who Is Ignorant Of Books Is Often Well Acquainted With Other Things; For Life Is Of The Same Length In The Learned And Unlearned; The Mind Cannot Be Idle; If It Is Not Taken Up With One Thing, It Attends To Another Through Choice Or Necessity; And The Degree Of Previous Capacity In One Class Or Another Is A Mere Lottery.

Whatever Excites The Spirit Of Contradiction Is Capable Of Producing The Last Effects Of Heroism; Which Is Only The Highest Pitch Of Obstinacy, In A Good Or Bad Cause, In Wisdom Or Folly.

Whatever Is Placed Beyond The Reach Of Sense And Knowledge, Whatever Is Imperfectly Discerned, The Fancy Pieces Out At Its Leisure; And All But The Present Moment, But The Present Spot, Passion Claims For Its Own, And Brooding Over It With Wings Outspread, Stamps It With An Image Of Itself. Passion Is Lord Of Infinite Space, And Distant Objects Please Because They Border On Its Confines And Are Moulded By Its Touch.

We Have More Faith In A Well-written Romance While We Are Reading It Than In Common History. The Vividness Of The Representations In The One Case More Than Counterbalances The Mere Knowledge Of The Truth Of Facts In The Other.

When You Find Out A Man's Ruling Passion, Beware Of Crossing Him In It.

That Which Is Not, Shall Never Be; That Which Is, Shall Never Cease To Be. To The Wise, These Truths Are Self-evident.

Persons Without Education Certainly Do Not Want Either Acuteness Or Strength Of Mind In What Concerns Themselves, Or In Things Immediately Within Their Observation; But They Have No Power Of Abstraction, No General Standard Of Taste, Or Scale Of Opinion. They See Their Objects Always Near, And Never In The Horizon. Hence Arises That Egotism Which Has Been Remarked As The Characteristic Of Self-taught Men.

Wrong Dressed Out In Pride, Pomp, And Circumstance Has More Attraction Than Abstract Right.

A Life Of Action And Danger Moderates The Dread Of Death. It Not Only Gives Us Fortitude To Bear Pain, But Teaches Us At Every Step The Precarious Tenure On Which We Hold Our Present Being.

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.

Dr. Johnson Was A Lazy Learned Man Who Liked To Think And Talk Better Than To Read Or Write; Who, However, Wrote Much And Well, But Too Often By Rote.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

We Never Do Anything Well Till We Cease To Think About The Manner Of Doing It.

The Confession Of Our Failings Is A Thankless Office. It Savors Less Of Sincerity Or Modesty Than Of Ostentation. It Seems As If We Thought Our Weaknesses As Good As Other People's Virtues.

No Young Man Ever Thinks He Shall Die.

Pride Goes Before A Fall, They Say, And Yet We Often Find, The Folks Who Throw All Pride Away Most Often Fall Behind.

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets. We Attempt Nothing Great But From A Sense Of The Difficulties We Have To Encounter, We Persevere In Nothing Great But From A Pride In Overcoming Them.

A Really Great Man Has Always An Idea Of Something Greater Than Himself.

We Can Bear To Be Deprived Of Everything But Our Self-conceit.

Cunning Is The Art Of Concealing Our Own Defects, And Discovering Other People's Weaknesses.

Our Friends Are Generally Ready To Do Everything For Us, Except The Very Thing We Wish Them To Do.

As Is Our Confidence, So Is Our Capacity.

Positive Attitude

A Lively Blockhead In Company Is A Public Benefit. Silence Or Dulness By The Side Of Folly Looks Like Wisdom.

A Great Chess-player Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It. No Act Terminating In Itself Constitutes Greatness. This Will Apply To All Displays Of Power Or Trials Of Skill, Which Are Confined To The Momentary, Individual Effort, And Construct No Permanent Image Or Trophy Of Themselves Without Them

The Art Of Life Is To Know How To Enjoy A Little And To Endure Very Much.

When We Forget Old Friends, It Is A Sign We Have Forgotten Ourselves.

Love At First Sight Is Only Realizing An Imagination That Has Always Haunted Us; Or Meeting With A Face, A Figure, Or Cast Of Expression In Perfection That We Have Seen And Admired In A Less Degree Or In Less Favorable Circumstances A Hundred Times Before.

The Ignorance Of The World Leaves One At The Mercy Of Its Malice.

Some People Break Promises For The Pleasure Of Breaking Them.

Keeping Promises

When I Am In The Country, I Wish To Vegetate Like The Country.

Friendship Is Cemented By Interest, Vanity, Or The Want Of Amusement; It Seldom Implies Esteem, Or Even Mutual Regard.

Fashion Is The Abortive Issue Of Vain Ostentation And Exclusive Egotism ... Tied To No Rule, And Bound To Conform To Every Whim Of The Minute.

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

Those People Who Are Uncomfortable In Themselves Are Disagreeable To Others.

Refinement Creates Beauty Everywhere. It Is The Grossness Of The Spectator That Discovers Anything Like Grossness In The Object.

Beauty Everywhere

The Public Is So In Awe Of Its Own Opinion That It Never Dares To Form Any, But Catches Up The First Idle Rumour, Lest It Should Be Behindhand In Its Judgment, And Echoes It Till It Is Deafened With The Sound Of Its Own Voice.

The Soul Of A Journey Is Liberty, Perfect Liberty, To Think, Feel, Do Just As One Pleases.

In Public Speaking, We Must Appeal Either To The Prejudices Of Others, Or To The Love Of Truth And Justice. If We Think Merely Of Displaying Our Own Ability, We Shall Ruin Every Cause We Undertake.

Habitual Liars Invent Falsehoods Not To Gain Any End Or Even To Deceive Their Hearers, But To Amuse Themselves. It Is Partly Practice And Partly Habit. It Requires An Effort In Them To Speak Truth.

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.

Learning Is The Knowledge Of That Which None But The Learned Know.

There Are Only Three Pleasures In Life Pure And Lasting, And All Derived From Inanimate Things-books, Pictures And The Face Of Nature.

A Grave Blockhead Should Always Go About With A Lively One - They Show One Another Off To The Best Advantage.

The Chain Of Habit Coils Itself Around The Heart Like A Serpent, To Gnaw And Stifle It.

Actors Are The Only Honest Hypocrites.

To The Proud The Slightest Repulse Or Disappointment Is The Last Indignity.

General Principles Are Not The Less True Or Important Because From Their Nature They Elude Immediate Observation; They Are Like The Air, Which Is Not The Less Necessary Because We Neither See Nor Feel It.

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One; That Is, Who Have Raised Themselves A Monument In The Minds And Memories Of Men.

Look Up, Laugh Loud, Talk Big, Keep The Color In Your Cheek And The Fire In Your Eye, Adorn Your Person, Maintain Your Health, Your Beauty And Your Animal Spirits.

Art Is The Microscope Of The Mind, Which Sharpens The Wit As The Other Does The Sight; And Converts Every Object Into A Little Universe In Itself. Art May Be Said To Draw Aside The Veil From Nature. To Those Who Are Perfectly Unskilled In The Practice, Unimbued With The Principles Of Art, Most Objects Present Only A Confused Mass.

It Is Hard For Any One To Be An Honest Politician Who Is Not Born And Bred A Dissenter.

Despair Swallows Up Cowardice.

The Most Phlegmatic Dispositions Often Contain The Most Inflammable Spirits, As Fire Is Struck From The Hardest Flints.

Men Are In Numberless Instances Qualified For Certain Things, For No Other Reason Than Because They Are Qualified For Nothing Else.

Poverty Is The Test Of Civility And The Touchstone Of Friendship.

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.

Like A Rustic At A Fair, We Are Full Of Amazement And Rapture, And Have No Thought Of Going Home, Or That It Will Soon Be Night.

As A General Rule, Those Who Are Dissatisfied With Themselves Will Seek To Go Out Of Themselves Into An Ideal World. Persons In Strong Health And Spirits, Who Take Plenty Of Air And Exercise, Who Are "in Favor With, Their Stars," And Have A Thorough Relish Of The Good Things Of This Life, Seldom Devote Themselves In Despair To Religion Or The Muses. Sedentary, Nervous, Hypochondriacal People, On The Contrary, Are Forced, For Want Of An Appetite For The Real And Substantial, To Look Out For A More Airy Food And Speculative Comforts.

The Last Pleasure In Life Is The Sense Of Discharging Our Duty.

A Scholar Is Like A Book Written In A Dead Language. It Is Not Every One That Can Read In It.

An Honest Man Speaks The Truth, Though It May Give Offence; A Vain Man, In Order That It May.

No One Ever Approaches Perfection Except By Stealth, And Unknown To Themselves.

Elegance Is Something More Than Ease; It Is More Than A Freedom From Awkwardness Or Restraint. It Implies, I Conceive, A Precision, A Polish, A Sparkling, Spirited Yet Delicate.

A Whig Is Properly What Is Called A Trimmer - That Is, A Coward To Both Sides Of The Question, Who Dare Not Be A Knave Nor An Honest Man, But Is A Sort Of Whiffing, Shuffling, Cunning, Silly, Contemptible, Unmeaning Negation Of The Two.

There Is No One Thoroughly Despicable. We Cannot Descend Much Lower Than An Idiot; And An Idiot Has Some Advantages Over A Wise Man.

We Prefer A Person With Vivacity And High Spirits, Though Bordering Upon Insolence, To The Timid And Pusillanimous; We Are Fonder Of Wit Joined To Malice Than Of Dullness Without It.

The Soil Of Friendship Is Worn Out With Constant Use. Habit May Still Attach Us To Each Other, But We Feel Ourselves Fettered By It. Old Friends Might Be Compared To Old Married People Without The Tie Of Children.

Vanity Does Not Refer To The Opinion A Man Entertains Of Himself, But To That Which He Wishes Others To Entertain Of Him.

He Who Comes Up To His Own Idea Of Greatness Must Always Have Had A Very Low Standard Of It In His Mind.

Affectation Is As Necessary To The Mind As Dress Is To The Body.

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty. We Sometimes See A Certain Fine Self-possession, An Habitual Voluptuousness Of Character, Which Reposes On Its Own Sensations And Derives Pleasure From All Around It, That Is More Irresistible Than Any Other Attraction. There Is An Air Of Languid Enjoyment In Such Persons, "in Their Eyes, In Their Arms, And Their Hands, And Their Face," Which Robs Us Of Ourselves, And Draws Us By A Secret Sympathy Towards Them.

The Difference Between The Vanity Of A Frenchman And An Englishman Seems To Be This: The One Thinks Everything Right That Is French, The Other Thinks Everything Wrong That Is Not English.

Abuse Is An Indirect Species Of Homage.

Belief Is With Them Mechanical, Voluntary: They Believe What They Are Paid For - They Swear To That Which Turns To Account. Do You Suppose, That After Years Spent In This Manner, They Have Any Feeling Left Answering To The Difference Between Truth And Falsehood?

The Greatest Offence Against Virtue Is To Speak Ill Of It.

No Man Would, I Think, Exchange His Existence With Any Other Man, However Fortunate. We Had As Lief Not Be, As Not Be Ourselves.

All Is Without Form And Void. Someone Said Of His Landscapes That They Were Pictures Of Nothing And Very Like.

A Thought Must Tell At Once, Or Not At All.

The Vices Are Never So Well Employed As In Combating One Another.

People Are Not Soured By Misfortune, But By The Reception They Meet With In It.

Mankind Are So Ready To Bestow Their Admiration On The Dead, Because The Latter Do Not Hear It, Or Because It Gives No Pleasure To The Objects Of It. Even Fame Is The Offspring Of Envy.

Features Alone Do Not Run In The Blood; Vices And Virtues, Genius And Folly, Are Transmitted Through The Same Sure But Unseen Channel.

Books Are A World In Themselves, It Is True; But They Are Not The Only World. The World Itself Is A Volume Larger Than All The Libraries In It.

I Do Not Think There Is Anything Deserving The Name Of Society To Be Found Out Of London.

The Dupe Of Friendship, And The Fool Of Love; Have I Not Reason To Hate And To Despise Myself? Indeed I Do; And Chiefly For Not Having Hated And Despised The World Enough.

Lost Friendship

Trending Author

Chelsea Handler

George Galloway

Category