Top 500 William Hazlitt Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.”

— William Hazlitt

102. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

103. “People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy’s sake.”

— William Hazlitt

104. “Vice is man’s nature: virtue is a habit – or a mask.”

— William Hazlitt

105. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

106. “A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common.”

— William Hazlitt

107. “Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite.”

— William Hazlitt

108. “The great requisite for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination.”

— William Hazlitt

109. “Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.”

— William Hazlitt

110. “The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.”

— William Hazlitt

111. “The path of genius is free, and its own.”

— William Hazlitt

112. “An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.”

— William Hazlitt

113. “We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”

— William Hazlitt

114. “Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”

— William Hazlitt

Featured in: Intelligence Quotes

115. “Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”

— William Hazlitt

116. “As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.”

— William Hazlitt

117. “Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.”

— William Hazlitt

118. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

119. “Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.”

— William Hazlitt

120. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

121. “Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses.”

— William Hazlitt

122. “Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.”

— William Hazlitt

123. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

124. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

125. “No really great man ever thought himself so.”

— William Hazlitt

126. “A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.”

— William Hazlitt

Featured in: Strong Quotes

127. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

128. “One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.”

— William Hazlitt

129. “The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.”

— William Hazlitt

130. “Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.”

— William Hazlitt

131. “Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.”

— William Hazlitt

132. “I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.”

— William Hazlitt

133. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

Featured in: Reading Quotes

134. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

135. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

136. “Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.”

— William Hazlitt

137. “All is without form and void. Someone said of his landscapes that they were pictures of nothing and very like.”

— William Hazlitt

138. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

139. “The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.”

— William Hazlitt

140. “The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.”

— William Hazlitt

141. “True friendship is self-love at second hand; where, as in a flattering mirror we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness.”

— William Hazlitt

142. “Good-nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.”

— William Hazlitt

143. “The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.”

— William Hazlitt

144. “A man’s reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.”

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

146. “Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.”

— William Hazlitt

147. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

148. “The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.”

— William Hazlitt

149. “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.”

— William Hazlitt

150. “By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.”

— William Hazlitt