William Hazlitt

Who was William Hazlitt?

William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, as the greatest art critic of his age, and as a drama critic, social commentator, and philosopher. He was also a painter. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is currently little read and mostly out of print. During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth.

Famous Quotes:

• We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.
• We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
• If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
• As is our confidence, so is our capacity.
• If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
• To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.
• Good temper is an estate for life.
• Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right path, he stands still.
• Grace in women has more effect than beauty.
• It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.