William Hazlitt

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

Learning is its own exceeding great reward.

Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.

We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.

We must be doing something to be happy.

We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.