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Quotes from Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims — William Hazlitt

1778–1830 England

← All quotes by William Hazlitt

35 quotes

Those who can command themselves, command others.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

The public have neither shame or gratitude.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test; for it is on that on which our success in life depends.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

No wise man can have a 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.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great, but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter: we can persevere in nothing great, but from a pride in overcoming them.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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.

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Hazlitt (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.