William Hazlitt, (1778-1830) British essayist. Quotes

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

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.

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.

No wise man can have contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth and unknown to themselves.

I do not think that what is called love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like -- grave or gay, black, brown, or fair, with golden tresses or raven locks -- and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as "spectacles" to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.

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 might have been.

The art of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.

We must be doing something to be happy.