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

— William Hazlitt Lectures on the English Poets (1818)

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More quotes by William Hazlitt

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

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

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

Political Essays (1819)

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.

Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

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