William Hazlitt Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

  William Hazlitt

  Failure, Giving, Doubt

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.174

• The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.

  William Hazlitt

  Pain, Giving, Littles

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Country, Scotch, Giving

  William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “Miscellaneous writings”

• 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

  Death, Giving, Trouble

  Table Talk "On the Fear of Death" (1822)

• If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Acting, Actors

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Ideas, Giving, Atmosphere

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.175, Delphi Classics

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Hate, Believe, Passion

  William Hazlitt (1847). “The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte”, p.236

• The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Weight, Affection

  William Hazlitt (1857). “Table-talk: Original Essays on Men and Manners”, p.7

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

  William Hazlitt

  Truth, Men, Order

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.139

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Mean, Passion, Writing

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Lectures on the English Poets”, p.9

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Breathing, Cities, Space

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.524

• By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.

  William Hazlitt

  Hurt, Reading, Flames

  William Hazlitt, Herschel Moreland Sikes, William Hallam Bonner, Gerald Lahey (1979). “The Letters of William Hazlitt”, p.224, Springer

• There are some persons who never succeed from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Succeed, Failing

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1518, Delphi Classics

• Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Doe, Habit

  William Hazlitt (1859). “Table talk”

• Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! ... I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.

  William Hazlitt

  Heart, Thinking, Blue

  William Hazlitt (1871). “Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners”, p.250

• Habit is necessary to give power.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Habit

  William Hazlitt (1870). “The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.432

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Opportunity, Giving, Faults

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1472, Delphi Classics

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Self, Giving, Judging

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.452

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Poetry, Painting

  William Hazlitt (1859). “Lectures on the English comic writers, and Lectures on the English poets”

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Race, Idols, Evil

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.553

• Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Envy, Admiration

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1518, Delphi Classics

• Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.

  William Hazlitt

  Wise, Men, Giving

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.60

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Pain, Giving, Bears

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1360, Delphi Classics

• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Envy, Weight

• We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

  William Hazlitt

  Appreciation, Courage, Thinking

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.134

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