Background Image

...

The Poetical Impression Of Any Object Is That Uneasy, Exquisite Sense Of Beauty Or Power That Cannot Be Contained Within Itself; That Is Impatient Of All Limit; That (as Flame Bends To Flame) Strives To Link Itself To Some Other Image Of Kindred Beauty Or Grandeur; To Enshrine Itself, As It Were, In The Highest Forms Of Fancy, And To Relieve The Aching Sense Of Pleasure By Expressing It In The Boldest Manner.

-William Hazlitt

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Poetical Impression Of

William Hazlitt

...

The Poetical Impression Of Any Object Is That Uneasy, Exquisite Sense Of Beauty Or Power That Cannot Be Contained Within Itself; That Is Impatient Of All Limit; That (as Flame Bends To Flame) Strives To Link Itself To Some Other Image Of Kindred Beauty Or Grandeur; To Enshrine Itself, As It Were, In The Highest Forms Of Fancy, And To Relieve The Aching Sense Of Pleasure By Expressing It In The Boldest Manner.

Views: 5

Topic

More From William Hazlitt

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.

The Most Fluent Talkers Or Most Plausible Reasoners Are Not Always The Justest Thinkers.

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

Women Never Reason, And Therefore They Are (comparatively) Seldom Wrong.

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

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.

The Love Of Liberty Is The Love Of Others; The Love Of Power Is The Love Of Ourselves.

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

He Will Never Have True Friends Who Is Afraid Of Making Enemies.

Grace Has Been Defined As The Outward Expression Of The Inward Harmony Of The Soul.

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

There Are No Rules For Friendship. It Must Be Left To Itself. We Cannot Force It Any More Than Love.

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.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

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

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

Taste Is Nothing But An Enlarged Capacity For Receiving Pleasure From Works Of Imagination.

Humour Is The Making Others Act Or Talk Absurdly And Unconsciously; Wit Is The Pointing Out And Ridiculing That Absurdity Consciously, And With More Or Less Ill-nature.

Abuse Is An Indirect Species Of Homage.

When A Thing Ceases To Be A Subject Of Controversy, It Ceases To Be A Subject Of Interest.

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

The Most Rational Cure After All For The Inordinate Fear Of Death Is To Set A Just Value On Life.

The Severest Critics Are Always Those Who Have Either Never Attempted, Or Who Have Failed In Original Composition.

A Nickname Is The Heaviest Stone That The Devil Can Throw At A Man. It Is A Bugbear To The Imagination, And, Though We Do Not Believe In It, It Still Haunts Our Apprehensions.

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.

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

A King (as Such) Is Not A Great Man. He Has Great Power, But It Is Not His Own.

Pride Is Founded Not On The Sense Of Happiness, But On The Sense Of Power.

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.

Knowledge Is Pleasure As Well As Power.

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

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.

We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy.

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

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.

The Temple Of Fame Stands Upon The Grave: The Flame That Burns Upon Its Altars Is Kindled From The Ashes Of Great Men.

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

No Man Is Truly Great Who Is Great Only In His Lifetime. The Test Of Greatness Is The Page Of History.

Our Opinions Are Not Our Own, But In The Power Of Sympathy. If A Person Tells Us A Palpable Falsehood, We Not Only Dare Not Contradict Him, But We Dare Hardly Disbelieve Him To His Face. A Lie Boldly Uttered Has The Effect Of Truth For The Instant.

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!

The Player Envies Only The Player, The Poet Envies Only The Poet.

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

The Origin Of All Science Is The Desire To Know Causes, And The Origin Of All False Science Is The Desire To Accept False Causes Rather Than None; Or, Which Is The Same Thing, In The Unwillingness To Acknowledge Our Own Ignorance.

The Look Of A Gentleman Is Little Else Than The Reflection Of The Looks Of The World.

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

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.

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

If We Use No Ceremony Towards Others, We Shall Be Treated Without Any. People Are Soon Tired Of Paying Trifling Attentions To Those Who Receive Them With Coldness, And Return Them With Neglect.

They [corporations] Feel Neither Shame, Remorse, Gratitude, Nor Goodwill.

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

Perhaps Propriety Is As Near A Word As Any To Denote The Manners Of The Gentleman; Elegance Is Necessary To The Fine Gentleman; Dignity Is Proper To Noblemen; And Majesty To Kings.

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

Believe All The Good You Can Of Everyone. Do Not Measure Others By Yourself. If They Have Advantages Which You Have Not, Let Your Liberality Keep Pace With Their Good Fortune. Envy No One, And You Need Envy No One.

Wit Is The Rarest Quality To Be Met With Among People Of Education, And The Most Common Among The Uneducated.

Poverty, When It Is Voluntary, Is Never Despicable, But Takes An Heroical Aspect.

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

The Surest Hindrance Of Success Is To Have Too High A Standard Of Refinement In Our Own Minds, Or Too High An Opinion Of The Judgment Of The Public. He Who Is Determined Not To Be Satisfied With Anything Short Of Perfection Will Never Do Anything To Please Himself Or Others.

It Is Remarkable How Virtuous And Generously Disposed Every One Is At A Play.

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

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.

Political Truth Is Libel; Religious Truth, Blasphemy.

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

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.

Walk Groundly, Talk Profoundly, Drink Roundly, Sleep Soundly.

There Is A Softness And A Harmony In The Words And In The Thought Unparalleled. Of All Conceits It Is Surely The Most Classical. "i Count Only The Hours That Are Serene.".

We Are Governed By Sympathy; And The Extent Of Our Sympathy Is Determined By That Of Our Sensibility

Those Who Have Had None Of The Cares Of This Life To Harass And Disturb Them, Have Been Obliged To Have Recourse To The Hopes And Fears Of The Next To Vary The Prospect Before Them.

To Be Remembered After We Are Dead, Is But Poor Recompense For Being Treated With Contempt While We Are Living.

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.

Spleen Can Subsist On Any Kind Of Food.

Our Contempt For Others Proves Nothing But The Illiberality And Narrowness Of Our Own Views.

When We Hear Complaints Of The Wretchedness Or Vanity Of Human Life, The Proper Answer To Them Would Be That There Is Hardly Any One Who At Some Point Or Other Has Not Been In Love. If We Consider The High Abstraction Of This Feeling, Its Depth, Its Purity, Its Voluptuous Refinement, Even In The Meanest Breast, How Sacred And How Sweet It Is, This Alone May Reconcile Us To The Lot Of Humanity. That Drop Of Balm Turns The Bitter Cup To A Delicious Nectar.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

There Is Nothing More To Be Esteemed Than A Manly Firmness And Decision Of Character.

We Prefer Ourselves To Others, Only Because We A Have More Intimate Consciousness And Confirmed Opinion Of Our Own Claims And Merits Than Of Any Other Person's.

Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

The Incentive To Ambition Is The Love Of Power.

I Maintain That There Is No Common Language Or Medium Of Understanding Between People Of Education And Without It - Between Those Who Judge Of Things From Books Or From Their Senses. Ignorance Has So Far The Advantage Over Learning; For It Can Make An Appeal To You From What You Know; But You Cannot Re-act Upon It Through That Which It Is A Perfect Stranger To. Ignorance Is, Therefore, Power.

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 Greatest Offence Against Virtue Is To Speak Ill Of It.

A Hypocrite Despises Those Whom He Deceives, But Has No Respect For Himself. He Would Make A Dupe Of Himself Too, If He Could.

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.

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

When The Imagination Is Continually Led To The Brink Of Vice By A System Of Terror And Denunciations, People Fling Themselves Over The Precipice From The Mere Dread Of Falling.

The Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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.

It May Be Made A Question Whether Men Grow Wiser As They Grow Older, Anymore Than They Grow Stronger Or Healthier Or Honest.

There Cannot Be A Surer Proof Of Low Origin, Or Of An Innate Meanness Of Disposition, Than To Be Always Talking And Thinking Of Being Genteel.

Religion Either Makes Men Wise And Virtuous, Or It Makes Them Set Up False Pretenses To Both.

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.

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

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

Beauty Everywhere

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.

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.

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

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

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

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

Charity, Like Nature, Abhors A Vacuum. Next To Putting It In A Bank, Men Like To Squander Their Superfluous Wealth On Those To Whom It Is Sure To Be Doing The Least Possible Good.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Love Of Letters Is The Forlorn Hope Of The Man Of Letters. His Ruling Passion Is The Love Of Fame.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

Want Of Principle Is Power. Truth And Honesty Set A Limit To Our Efforts, Which Impudence And Hypocrisy Easily Overleap.

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

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

Landscape Painting Is The Obvious Resource Of Misanthropy.

Landscape Painting

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

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.

Words Are The Only Things That Last For Ever.

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.

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.

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.

The Public Have Neither Shame Or Gratitude.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Confined Air Of A Metropolis Is Hurtful To The Minds And Bodies Of Those Who Have Never Lived Out Of It. It Is Impure, Stagnant--without Breathing-space To Allow A Larger View Of Ourselves Or Others--and Gives Birth To A Puny, Sickly, Unwholesome, And Degenerate Race Of Beings.

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.

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

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.

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

Anyone Is To Be Pitied Who Has Just Sense Enough To Perceive His Deficiencies.

We Are All Of Us, More Or Less, The Slaves Of Opinion.

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

Languages Happily Restrict The Mind To What Is Of Its Own Native Growth And Fitted For It, As Rivers And Mountains Bond Countries; Or The Empire Of Learning, As Well As States, Would Become Unwieldy And Overgrown.

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.

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.

Those Who Make Their Dress A Principal Part Of Themselves, Will, In General, Become Of No More Value Than Their Dress.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Are Persons Who Are Never Easy Unless They Are Putting Your Books And Papers In Order--that Is, According To Their Notions Of The Matter--and Hide Things Lest They Should Be Lost, Where Neither The Owner Nor Anybody Else Can Find Them. This Is A Sort Of Magpie Faculty. If Anything Is Left Where You Want It, It Is Called Litter. There Is A Pedantry In Housewifery, As Well As In The Gravest Concerns. Abraham Tucker Complained That Whenever His Maid Servant Had Been In His Library, He Could Not See Comfortably To Work Again For Several Days.

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

Positive Thinking

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Popularity Disarms Envy In Well-disposed Minds. Those Are Ever The Most Ready To Do Justice To Others Who Feel That The World Has Done Them Justice. When Success Has Not This Effect In Opening The Mind, It Is A Sign That It Has Been Ill Deserved.

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

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

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

If A Person Has No Delicacy, He Has You In His Power.

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

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

The Devil Was A Great Loss In The Preternatural World. He Was Always Something To Fear And To Hate; He Supplied The Antagonist Powers Of The Imagination, And The Arch Of True Religion Hardly Stands Firm Without Him.

Envy Is The Most Universal Passion. We Only Pride Ourselves On The Qualities We Possess, Or Think We Possess; But We Envy The Pretensions We Have, And Those Which We Have Not, And Do Not Even Wish For. We Envy The Greatest Qualities And Every Trifling Advantage. We Envy The Most Ridiculous Appearance Or Affectation Of Superiority. We Envy Folly And Conceit; Nay, We Go So Far As To Envy Whatever Confers Distinction Of Notoriety, Even Vice And Infamy.

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

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.

A Life Of Action And Danger Moderates The Dread Of Death.

I Am Not, In The Ordinary Acceptation Of The Term, A Good-natured Man; That Is, Many Things Annoy Me Besides What Interferes With My Own Ease And Interest. I Hate A Lie; A Piece Of Injustice Wounds Me To The Quick, Though Nothing But The Report Of It Reach Me. Therefore I Have Made Many Enemies And Few Friends; For The Public Know Nothing Of Well-wishers, And Keep A Wary Eye On Those Who Would Reform Them.

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.

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

A Person Who Talks With Equal Vivacity On Every Subject, Excites No Interest In Any. Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

A Woman's Vanity Is Interested In Making The Object Of Her Choice The God Of Her Idolatry.

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.

If We Are Long Absent From Our Friends, We Forget Them; If We Are Constantly With Them, We Despise Them.

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.

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

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.

Satirists Gain The Applause Of Others Through Fear, Not Through Love.

Modesty Is The Lowest Of The Virtues, And Is A Real Confession Of The Deficiency It Indicates. He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

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

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

We Learn To Curb Our Will And Keep Our Overt Actions Within The Bounds Of Humanity, Long Before We Can Subdue Our Sentiments And Imaginations To The Same Mild Tone.

Tyrants Forego All Respect For Humanity In Proportion As They Are Sunk Beneath It. Taught To Believe Themselves Of A Different Species, They Really Become So, Lose Their Participation With Their Kind, And In Mimicking The God Dwindle Into The Brute.

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

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

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.

Those Who Have The Largest Hearts Have The Soundest Understandings; And They Are The Truest Philosophers Who Can Forget Themselves.

Every Man Depends On The Quantity Of Sense, Wit, Or Good Manners He Brings Into Society For The Reception He Meets With In It.

It Might Be Argued, That To Be A Knave Is The Gift Of Fortune, But To Play The Fool To Advantage It Is Necessary To Be A Learned Man.

Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

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

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.

There Is A Secret Pride In Every Human Heart That Revolts At Tyranny. You May Order And Drive An Individual, But You Cannot Make Him Respect You.

Language, If It Throws A Veil Over Our Ideas, Adds A Softness And Refinement To Them, Like That Which The Atmosphere Gives To Naked Objects.

We Uniformly Applaud What Is Right And Condemn What Is Wrong, When It Costs Us Nothing But The Sentiment.

An Orator Can Hardly Get Beyond Commonplaces: If He Does He Gets Beyond His Hearers.

Public Speaking

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.

It Is Essential To The Triumph Of Reform That It Should Never Succeed.

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

Any One May Mouth Out A Passage With A Theatrical Cadence, Or Get Upon Stilts To Tell His Thoughts; But To Write Or Speak With Propriety And Simplicity Is A More Difficult Task. Thus It Is Easy To Affect A Pompous Style, To Use A Word Twice As Big As The Thing You Want To Express; It Is Not So Easy To Pitch Upon The Very Word That Exactly Fits It.

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

Our Notions With Respect To The Importance Of Life, And Our Attachment To It, Depend On A Principle Which Has Very Little To Do With Its Happiness Or Its Misery. The Love Of Life Is, In General, The Effect Not Of Our Enjoyments, But Of Our Passions.

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.

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

Trending Author

Ronnie James Dio

Category