Frases de William Hazlitt

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“Todos nós somos, mais ou menos, escravos da opinião pública.”

“Uma paixão forte será bem-sucedida, pois o desejo do objetivo indicará os meios de alcançá-la.”

“Nunca conseguimos fazer nada correctamente enquanto não pararmos de pensar em como o fazer.”

“A arte de agradar consiste em ter agrado com isso.”

“Antipatias violentas são sempre suspeitas e revelam uma afinidade secreta.”

“Assim como se diz que a hipocrisia é o maior elogio da virtude, a arte de mentir é o mais forte reconhecimento da força da verdade.”

“A arte de viver é saber como se divertir pouco e resistir muito.”

“Ciência é o desejo de conhecer as causas”

“Uma paixão forte por qualquer objecto assegurará o sucesso, porque o desejo pelo objectivo mostrará os meios.”

“Pensar mal da humanidade sem lhe desejar mal talvez seja a forma mais elevada de sabedoria e de virtude.”

“Assim como o estômago rejeita certos alimentos, o espírito se revolta contra certas opiniões.”

“Às vezes ofendemos mais com o nosso silêncio do que com a nossa impertinência.”

“A simplicidade de caráter é o resultado natural da profundez de pensamento.”

“Não há animal mais degradante, estúpido, covarde, lamentável, egoísta, rancoroso, invejoso, ingrato, que o público. É o maior dos covardes, porque de si mesmo tem medo.”

“O espírito é o sal da conversa, não o seu alimento.”

“Como a nossa confiança, assim é a nossa capacidade.”

“Nenhum jovem acredita que um dia morrerá.”

“A multidão, que exige ser conduzida, continua a odiar os guias.”

“A vaidade não se refere à opinião que alguém tem de si mesmo, mas daquela que ele deseja que os outros tenham dele.”

“Quase toda a seita do cristianismo representa uma perversão da sua essência, com a finalidade de adaptá-lo aos preconceitos do mundo.”

“Aqueles para quem a roupa é a parte mais importante da pessoa acabam, geralmente, por valer tanto quanto a sua roupa.”

“As pessoas mais silenciosas geralmente são aquelas que pensam o melhor de si mesmas.”

“A moda é o refinamento que corre à frente da vulgaridade e teme ser ultrapassado.”

“A melhor parte da nossa vida é passada a aguardar o que vem.”

“É impossível odiar alguém que conhecemos.”

“Só ficamos satisfeitos em ter razão se conseguimos provar que os outros estão totalmente errados.”

“É melhor desejar que gozar, amar que ser amado.”

“Uma alcunha é a pedra mais pesada que o diabo pode atirar em alguém.”

“A ira pode subsistir com qualquer tipo de alimento.”

“A calúnia não exige provas.”

“Onde quer que nos sintamos em casa, estaremos à vontade.”

“É melhor não saber ler e escrever do que não saber fazer nenhuma outra coisa.”

“A liberdade é a única riqueza, porque do resto somos ao mesmo tempo amos e escravos.”

“Nós nunca fazemos nada bem até deixarmos de pensar sobre a maneira de o fazer.”

“Aqueles que merecem um monumento não precisam dele.”

“O homem é um animal que finge - e nunca é tão autêntico como quando interpreta um papel.”

“The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.”

“The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.”

“A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it.”

“Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.”

“It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.”

“Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.”

“The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.”

“Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.”

“A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one — they shew one another off to the best advantage.”

“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.”

“Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.”

“When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!”

“To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it…”

“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”

“The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.”

“It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes… It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it, out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive.”

“It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.”

“The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.”

“It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements — not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.”

“You know more of a road by having travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.”

“He changes his opinions as he does his friends, and much on the same account. He has no comfort in fixed principles; as soon as anything is settled in his own mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like a vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault.”

“There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please — that is as they please or displease us.”

“The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakespeare, every thing.”

“We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.”

“Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.”

“Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”

“Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.”

“If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.”

“Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.”