All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.
William Hazlitt
- Life
- 1778-1830
- Occupations
- literary historian, philosopher, writer
- Notable works
- Characters of Shakespear's Plays, Table-Talk, The Spirit of the Age
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
William Hazlitt
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
Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
William Hazlitt
Grace is the absence of every thing that indicates pain or difficulty, or hesitation or incongruity.
William Hazlitt
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
William Hazlitt
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
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.
William Hazlitt
In travelling we visit names as well as places.
William Hazlitt
It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
William Hazlitt
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
William Hazlitt
The love of fame, as it enters at times into his mind, is only another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority — that of time.
William Hazlitt
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.
William Hazlitt
Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
William Hazlitt
Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
William Hazlitt
We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.
William Hazlitt
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
William Hazlitt
Well, I’ve had a happy life.
William Hazlitt
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
William Hazlitt
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
William Hazlitt
You know more of a road by having travelled it then by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
William Hazlitt