Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

— William Hazlitt

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

— William Hazlitt

A great chess player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

— William Hazlitt

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

— William Hazlitt

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

All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass to their daily affairs and experience to what they have an opportunity to know and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.

— William Hazlitt

A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannuated desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last steps of it, nor is the size of a building to be judged of from the last stone that is added to it. It is neither the first nor last hour of our existence, but the space that parts these two - not our exit nor our entrance upon the stage, but what we do, feel, and think while there - that we are to attend to in pronouncing sentence upon it.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

— William Hazlitt

Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.

— William Hazlitt