William Hazlitt Thinking Quotations

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.

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

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. 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.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

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

Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.

No young man ever thinks he shall die.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.

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.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

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.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.

I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.

No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly or idiomatically.

There cannot be a surer proof of low origin, or of an innate meanness of disposition, than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel.

It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui.

Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.

The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.

The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.

In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.

We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.

In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.

To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.

However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us through the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defense.

Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.

It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition ... This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people, as possible.