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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,160)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,896)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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- 24-Feb-21 - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855).
- 22-Feb-21 - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927).
- 20-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927).
- 13-Feb-21 - tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917).
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- "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST: Phillips,...
- Letter (1860) | WIST: Andrew, John A.
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
Quotations by Hazlitt, William
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
The least pain in our little finger gives more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols — it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
They are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; a studied madness.
We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.
More undertakings fail for want of spirit than for want of sense.
They would not get a scratch with a pin to save the universe. They are more affected by the overturning of a plate of turtle soup than by the starving of a whole country.
No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you will pass for a fine man.
You know more of a road by having travelled it then by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
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.
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“On the Love of Life,” “The Round Table” column, The Examiner (15 Jan 1815)
Full text.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.
If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power, for you necessarily feel some towards him; and since he will take no denial, you must comply with his peremptory demands, or send for a constable, which out of respect for his character you will not do.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“On The Want Of Money,” Monthly Magazine (Jan 1827)
Full text.
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
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.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses.
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.
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
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 will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.
All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Lectures on English Poets, #1 “On Poetry in General” (1818)
Full text.
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.
There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.
The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up.
Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.
We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
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.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners, “On Corporate Bodies” (1821-22)
Full text.
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.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners, “On Living to One’s-Self” (1821-22)
Full text.
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.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays on Men And Manners, “On Paradox and Common-Place” (1821-1822)
Full text.
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern — why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners, “On the Fear of Death” (1821-1822)
Full text.
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 (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners, “On the Ignorance of the Learned” (1821-22)
Full text.
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners, “On the Knowledge of character” (1821-1822)
Full text.
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners, “On the Pleasure of Painting” (1821-1822)
Full text.
The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
Ignorance of the world leave one at the mercy of its malice.
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.
In love, in war, in conversation, in business, confidence and resolution are the principal things.
Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the world without money. To be in want of it, is to pass through life with little credit or pleasure; it is to live out of the world, or to be despised if you come into it …; it is to be scrutinized by strangers, and neglected by friends; it is to be a thrall to circumstances, an exile in one’s own country.
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
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 (1778-1830) English writer
The Plain Speaker, “On the Qualifications Necessary for Success” (1826)
Full text.
Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretences to both.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
The Round Table, ch. 32 “On Religious Hypocrisy” (1817)
Full text.