Background Image

...

That Humanity And Sincerity Which Dispose Men To Resist Injustice And Tyranny Render Them Unfit To Cope With The Cunning And Power Of Those Who Are Opposed To Them. The Friends Of Liberty Trust To The Professions Of Others Because They Are Themselves Sincere, And Endeavour To Secure The Public Good With The Least Possible Hurt To Its Enemies, Who Have No Regard To Anything But Their Own Unprincipled Ends, And Stick At Nothing To Accomplish Them.

-William Hazlitt

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

That Humanity And Sincerity

William Hazlitt

...

That Humanity And Sincerity Which Dispose Men To Resist Injustice And Tyranny Render Them Unfit To Cope With The Cunning And Power Of Those Who Are Opposed To Them. The Friends Of Liberty Trust To The Professions Of Others Because They Are Themselves Sincere, And Endeavour To Secure The Public Good With The Least Possible Hurt To Its Enemies, Who Have No Regard To Anything But Their Own Unprincipled Ends, And Stick At Nothing To Accomplish Them.

Views: 6

Topic

More From William Hazlitt

As Is Our Confidence, So Is Our Capacity.

Positive Attitude

In Exploring New And Doubtful Tracts Of Speculation, The Mind Strikes Out True And Original Views; As A Drop Of Water Hesitates At First What Direction It Will Take, But Afterwards Follows Its Own Course.

Horus Non Numero Nisi Serenas (i Count Only The Sunny Hours).

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

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.

Asleep, Nobody Is A Hypocrite

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.

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

However We May Flatter Ourselves To The Contrary, Our Friends Think No Higher Of Us Than The World Do. They See Us Through The Jaundiced Or Distrustful Eyes Of Others. They May Know Better, But Their Feelings Are Governed By Popular Prejudice. Nay, They Are More Shy Of Us (when Under A Cloud) Than Even Strangers; For We Involve Them In A Common Disgrace, Or Compel Them To Embroil Themselves In Continual Quarrels And Disputes In Our Defense.

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

Humanity Is To Be Met With In A Den Of Robbers.

One Shining Quality Lends A Lustre To Another, Or Hides Some Glaring Defect.

It Is Well There Is No One Without Fault; For He Would Not Have A Friend In The World. He Would Seem To Belong To S Different Species.

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.

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

They Are The Only Honest Hypocrites, Their Life Is A Voluntary Dream, A Studied Madness.

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.

Most Of The Methods For Measuring The Lapse Of Time Have, I Believe, Been The Contrivance Of Monks And Religious Recluses, Who, Finding Time Hang Heavy On Their Hands, Were At Some Pains To See How They Got Rid Of It.

The Humblest Painter Is A True Scholar; And The Best Of Scholars The Scholar Of Nature.

Perhaps The Best Cure For The Fear Of Death Is To Reflect That Life Has A Beginning As Well As An End.

The Way To Get On In The World Is To Be Neither More Nor Less Wise, Neither Better Nor Worse Than Your Neighbours.

It Is Better To Desire Than To Enjoy, To Love Than To Be Loved.

The Pleasure Of Hating, Like A Poisonous Mineral, Eats Into The Heart Of Religion, And Turns It To Ranking Spleen And Bigotry; It Makes Patriotism An Excuse For Carrying Fire, Pestilence, And Famine Into Other Lands: It Leaves To Virtue Nothing But The Spirit Of Censoriousness.

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

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

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.

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

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

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 Afraid Of Itself.

To Die Is Only To Be As We Were Before We Were Born; Yet No One Feels Any Remorse, Or Regret, Or Repugnance, In Contemplating This Last Idea.

Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

One Truth Discovered Is Immortal, And Entitles Its Author To Be So; For, Like A New Substance In Nature, It Cannot Be Destroyed.

What Passes In The World For Talent Or Dexterity Or Enterprise Is Often Only A Want Of Moral Principle. We May Succeed Where Others Fail, Not From A Greater Share Of Invention, But From Not Being Nice In The Choice Of Expedients.

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.

In Art, In Taste, In Life, In Speech, You Decide From Feeling, And Not From Reason. If We Were Obliged To Enter Into A Theoretical Deliberation On Every Occasion Before We Act, Life Would Be At A Stand, And Art Would Be Impracticable.

Reflection Makes Men Cowards.

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

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.

Well I've Had A Happy Life.

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

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.

The World Loves To Be Amused By Hollow Professions, To Be Deceived By Flattering Appearances, To Live In A State Of Hallucination; And Can Forgive Everything But The Plain, Downright, Simple, Honest Truth.

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.

Love May Turn To Indifference With Possession.

Painting Gives The Object Itself; Poetry What It Implies. Painting Embodies What A Thing Contains In Itself; Poetry Suggests What Exists Out Of It, In Any Manner Connected With It.

Power Is Pleasure; And Pleasure Sweetens Pain.

There Is An Unseemly Exposure Of The Mind, As Well As Of The Body.

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.

Anyone Who Has Passed Though The Regular Gradations Of A Classical Education, And Is Not Made A Fool By It, May Consider Himself As Having Had A Very Narrow Escape.

Vice Is Man's Nature: Virtue Is A Habit -- Or A Mask. . . . The Foregoing Maxim Shows The Difference Between Truth And Sarcasm.

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

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

Good Temper Is One Of The Great Preservers Of The Features.

Pride Erects A Little Kingdom Of Its Own, And Acts As Sovereign In It.

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.

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

Those Who Are Pleased With The Fewest Things Know The Least, As Those Who Are Pleased With Everything Know Nothing.

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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

It Is Not The Passion Of A Mind Struggling With Misfortune, Or The Hopelessness Of Its Desires, But Of A Mind Preying On Itself, And Disgusted With, Or Indifferent To All Other Things.

The Way To Procure Insults Is To Submit To Them. A Man Meets With No More Respect Than He Exacts.

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.

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.

A Man Who Is Determined Never To Move Out Of The Beaten Road Cannot Lose His Way.

Spleen Can Subsist On Any Kind Of Food.

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

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

Wonder At The First Sight Of Works Of Art May Be The Effect Of Ignorance And Novelty; But Real Admiration And Permanent Delight In Them Are The Growth Of Taste And Knowledge.

If The World Were Good For Nothing Else, It Is A Fine Subject For Speculation.

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.

Human Life May Be Regarded As A Succession Of Frontispieces. The Way To Be Satisfied Is Never To Look Back.

Common Sense, To Most People, Is Nothing More Than Their Own Opinions.

The Affected Modesty Of Most Women Is A Decoy For The Generous, The Delicate, And Unsuspecting; While The Artful, The Bold, And Unfeeling Either See Or Break Through Its Slender Disguises.

Tears May Be Considered As The Natural And Involuntary Resource Of The Mind Overcome By Some Sudden And Violent Emotion, Before Ithas Had Time To Reconcile Its Feelings To The Change In Circumstances: While Laughter May Be Defined To Be The Same Sort Of Convulsive And Involuntary Movement, Occasioned By Mere Sur Prise Or Contrast (in The Absence Of Any More Serious Emotion), Before It Has Time To Reconcile Its Belief To Contradictory Appearances.

The Measure Of Any Man's Virtue Is What He Would Do, If He Had Neither The Laws Nor Public Opinion, Nor Even His Own Prejudices, To Control Him.

The Insolence Of The Vulgar Is In Proportion To Their Ignorance. They Treat Everything With Contempt Which They Do Not Understand.

A Knave Thinks Himself A Fool, All The Time He Is Not Making A Fool Of Some Other Person.

None But Those Who Are Happy In Themselves Can Make Others So.

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

The Book-worm Wraps Himself Up In His Web Of Verbal Generalities, And Sees Only The Glimmering Shadows Of Things Reflected From The Minds Of Others.

No Young Man Ever Thinks He Shall Die.

We Would Willingly, And Without Remorse, Sacrifice Not Only The Present Moment, But All The Interval (no Matter How Long) That Separates Us From Any Favorite Object.

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

The Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

The Essence Of Poetry Is Will And Passion.

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.

Death Is The Greatest Evil, Because It Cuts Off Hope.

Faith Is Necessary To Victory.

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.

There Is A Quiet Repose And Steadiness About The Happiness Of Age, If The Life Has Been Well Spent. Its Feebleness Is Not Painful. The Nervous System Has Lost Its Acuteness. But, In Mature Years We Feel That A Burn, A Scald, A Cut, Is More Tolerable Than It Was In The Sensitive Period Of Youth.

Despair Swallows Up Cowardice.

What Are The Publications That Succeed? Those That Pretend To Teach The Public That The Persons They Have Been Accustomed Unwittingly To Look Up To As The Lights Of The Earth Are No Better Than Themselves.

We Are Fonder Of Visiting Our Friends In Health Than In Sickness. We Judge Less Favorably Of Their Characters When Any Misfortune Happens To Them; And A Lucky Hit, Either In Business Or Reputation, Improves Even Their Personal Appearance In Our Eyes.

We Had Rather Do Anything Than Acknowledge The Merit Of Another If We Can Help It. We Cannot Bear A Superior Or An Equal. Hence Ridicule Is Sure To Prevail Over Truth, For The Malice Of Mankind, Thrown Into The Scale, Gives The Casting Weight.

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.

A Man Knows His Companion In A Long Journey And A Little Inn.

A Great Chessplayer Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It.

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

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.

We Grow Tired Of Everything But Turning Others Into Ridicule, And Congratulating Ourselves On Their Defects.

Within My Heart Is Lurking Suspicion, And Base Fear, And Shame And Hate; But Above All, Tyrannous Love Sits Throned, Crowned With Her Graces, Silent And In Tears.

Society Is A More Level Surface Than We Imagine. Wise Men Or Absolute Fools Are Hard To Be Met With, As There Are Few Giants Or Dwarfs.

The Imagination Is Of So Delicate A Texture That Even Words Wound It.

It Is Only Those Who Never Think At All, Or Else Who Have Accustomed Themselves To Blood Invariably On Abstract Ideas, That Ever Feel Ennui.

Political Truth Is Libel; Religious Truth, Blasphemy.

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.

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

Some One Is Generally Sure To Be The Sufferer By A Joke.

One Of The Pleasantest Things In The World Is Going On A Journey; But I Like To Go By Myself.

Envy Is Littleness Of Soul.

He Who Would See Old Hoghton Right Must View It By The Pale Moonlight.

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.

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 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.

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

Hope Is The Best Possession.

The Multitude Who Require To Be Led, Still Hate Their Leaders.

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

The Number Of Objects We See From Living In A Large City Amuses The Mind Like A Perpetual Raree-show, Without Supplying It With Any Ideas.

Nothing Precludes Sympathy So Much As A Perfect Indifference To It

It Is Easier Taking The Beaten Path Than Making Our Way Over Bogs And Precipices. The Great Difficulty In Philosophy Is To Come To Every Question With A Mind Fresh And Unshackled By Former Theories, Though Strengthened By Exercise And Information.

The Truth Is, We Pamper Little Griefs Into Great Ones, And Bear Great Ones As Well As We Can.

The Best Kind Of Conversation Is That Which May Be Called Thinking Aloud.

I Like A Person Who Knows His Own Mind And Sticks To It; Who Sees At Once What, In Given Circumstances, Is To Be Done, And Does It.

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

Men Of Gravity Are Intellectual Stammerers, Whose Thoughts Move Slowly.

Painting For A Whole Morning Gives One As Excellent An Appetite For One's Dinner, As Old Abraham Tucker Acquired For His By Riding Over Banstead Downs.

Every Man, In His Own Opinion, Forms An Exception To The Ordinary Rules Of Morality.

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.

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.

Vice Is Man's Nature: Virtue Is A Habit--or A Mask.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

The Thing Is Plain. All That Men Really Understand, Is Confined To A Very Small Compass; To Their Daily Affairs And Experience; To What They Have An Opportunity To Know, And Motives To Study Or Practice. The Rest Is Affectation And Imposture.

Silence Is One Great Art Of Conversation. He Is Not A Fool Who Knows When To Hold His Tongue; And A Person May Gain Credit For Sense, Eloquence, Wit, Who Merely Says Nothing To Lessen The Opinion Which Others Have Of These Qualities In Themselves.

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.

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

One Truth Discovered, One Pang Of Regret At Not Being Able To Express It, Is Better Than All The Fluency And Flippancy In The World.

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

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.

We Cannot By A Little Verbal Sophistry Confound The Qualities Of Different Minds, Nor Force Opposite Excellences Into A Union By All The Intolerance In The World. If We Have A Taste For Some One Precise Style Or Manner, We May Keep It To Ourselves And Let Others Have Theirs. If We Are More Catholic In Our Notions, And Want Variety Of Excellence And Beauty, It Is Spread Abroad For Us To Profusion In The Variety Of Books And In The Several Growth Of Men's Minds, Fettered By No Capricious Or Arbitrary Rules.

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's Sister, Who Was No Saint, Sat To Canova As A Reclining Venus, And Being Asked If She Did Not Feel A Little Uncomfortable, Replied, "no. There Was A Fire In The Room."

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

The More We Do, The More We Can Do; The More Busy We Are, The More Leisure We Have.

Leisure Activities

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.

A Gentle Word, A Kind Look, A Good-natured Smile Can Work Wonders And Accomplish Miracles.

Honesty Is One Part Of Eloquence. We Persuade Others By Being In Earnest Ourselves.

Every Man, In Judging Of Himself, Is His Own Contemporary. He May Feel The Gale Of Popularity, But He Cannot Tell How Long It Will Last. His Opinion Of Himself Wants Distance, Wants Time, Wants Numbers, To Set It Off And Confirm It.

The Title Of Ultracrepidarian Critics Has Been Given To Those Persons Who Find Fault With Small And Insignificant Details.

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 Greatest Grossness Sometimes Accompanies The Greatest Refinement, As A Natural Relief.

Fashion Constantly Begins And Ends In The Two Things It Abhors Most, Singularity And Vulgarity.

Those Who Speak Ill Of The Spiritual Life, Although They Come And Go By Day, Are Like The Smith's Bellows: They Take Breath But Are Not Alive.

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

Shall I Faint, Now That I Have Poured Out The Spirit Of My Mind To The World, And Treated Many Subjects With Truth, With Freedom, With Power, Because I Have Been Followed With One Cry Of Abuse Ever Since For Not Being A Government Tool?

The World Judge Of Men By Their Ability In Their Profession, And We Judge Of Ourselves By The Same Test: For It Is On That On Which Our Success In Life Depends.

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

Genius, Like Humanity, Rusts For Want Of Use.

I Hate Anything That Occupies More Space Than It Is Worth... I Hate To See A Parcel Of Big Words Without Anything In Them.

Men Of The Greatest Genius Are Not Always The Most Prodigal Of Their Encomiums. But Then It Is When Their Range Of Power Is Confined, And They Have In Fact Little Perception, Except Of Their Own Particular Kind Of Excellence.

No Wise Man Can Have A Contempt For The Prejudices Of Others; And He Should Even Stand In A Certain Awe Of His Own, As If They Were Aged Parents And Monitors. They May In The End Prove Wiser Than He.

His Hypothesis Goes To This - To Make The Common Run Of His Readers Fancy They Can Do All That Can Be Done By Genius, And To Make The Man Of Genius Believe He Can Only Do What Is To Be Done By Mechanical Rules And Systematic Industry. This Is Not A Very Feasible Scheme; Nor Is Sir Joshua Sufficiently Clear And Explicit In His Reasoning In Support Of It.

Pure Good Soon Grows Insipid, Wants Variety And Spirit. Pain Is A Bittersweet, Which Never Surfeits. Love Turns, With A Little Indulgence, To Indifference Or Disgust. Hatred Alone Is Immortal.

The Wretched Are In This Respect Fortunate, That They Have The Strongest Yearning After Happiness; And To Desire Is In Some Sense To Enjoy.

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

If We Wish To Know The Force Of Human Genius, We Should Read Shakespeare. If We Wish To See The Insignificance Of Human Learning, We May Study His Commentators.

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

I Have Known Persons Without A Friend--never Any One Without Some Virtue. The Virtues Of The Former Conspired With Their Vices To Make The Whole World Their Enemies.

He Who Draws Upon His Own Resources Easily Comes To An End Of His Wealth.

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

Beauty Everywhere

Virtue Steals, Like A Guilty Thing, Into The Secret Haunts Of Vice And Infamy, Clings To Their Devoted Victim, And Will Not Be Driven Quite Away. Nothing Can Destroy The Human Heart.

Death Cancels Everything But Truth; And Strips A Man Of Everything But Genius And Virtue. It Is A Sort Of Natural Canonization.

Talent Is The Capacity Of Doing Anything That Depends On Application And Industry And It Is A Voluntary Power, While Genius Is Involuntary.

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

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One.

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.

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

The Best Way To Make Ourselves Agreeable To Others Is By Seeming To Think Them So. If We Appear Fully Sensible Of Their Good Qualities They Will Not Complain Of The Want Of Them In Us.

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

Success In Business Is Seldom Owing To Uncommon Talents Or Original Power Which Is Untractable And Self-willed, But To The Greatest Degree Of Commonplace Capacity.

The Discussing The Characters And Foibles Of Common Friends Is A Great Sweetness And Cement Of Friendship.

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.

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.

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty.

The World Dread Nothing So Much As Being Convinced Of Their Errors.

I Can Enjoy Society In A Room; But Out Of Doors, Nature Is Company Enough For Me

Humour Is The Describing The Ludicrous As It Is In Itself; Wit Is The Exposing It, By Comparing Or Contrasting It With Something Else. Humour Is, As It Were, The Growth Of Nature And Accident; Wit Is The Product Of Art And Fancy.

People Try To Reconcile You To A Disappointment In Love By Asking Why You Should Cherish A Passion For An Object That Has Proved Itself Worthless. Had You Known This Before, You Would Not Have Encouraged The Passion; But That Having Been Once Formed, Knowledge Does Not Destroy It. If We Have Drank Poison, Finding It Out Does Not Prevent Its Being In Our Veins: So Passion Leaves Its Poison In The Mind!

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

It Is Better To Drink Of Deep Grief Than To Taste Shallow Pleasures.

To A Superior Race Of Being The Pretensions Of Mankind To Extraordinary Sanctity And Virtue Must Seem... Ridiculous.

We Do Not Like Our Friends The Worse Because They Sometimes Give Us An Opportunity To Rail At Them Heartily. Their Faults Reconcile Us To Their Virtues.

The Idea Of What The Public Will Think Prevents The Public From Ever Thinking At All, And Acts As A Spell On The Exercise Of Private Judgment.

If I Have Not Read A Book Before, It Is, For All Intents And Purposes, New To Me Whether It Was Printed Yesterday Or Three Hundred Years Ago.

Those Who Are Fond Of Setting Things To Rights, Have No Great Objection To Seeing Them Wrong.

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

We Talk Little When We Do Not Talk About Ourselves.

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.

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.

Trending Author

AnnaLynne McCord

Category