William Hazlitt

He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: while he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: shortsightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others.

This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it.

I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Dobrobyt jest świetnym nauczycielem; przeciwności większe.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

Those who cannot miss an opportunity of saying a good thing are not to be trusted with the management of any great question.

Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education.

Aktorzy są jedynymi uczciwymi hipokrytami.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

Life is the art of being well deceived.

No style is good that is not fit to be spoken or read aloud with effect.

Niektóre osoby składają obietnice za przyjemność ich złamania.

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

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

Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

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

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

The more we do, the more we can do.

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.

Żaden naprawdę wspaniały człowiek nigdy nie uważał się za takiego.

No really great man ever thought himself so.

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.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

Musimy odegrać naszą rolę z przesadą (overact), aby wytworzyć jakikolwiek w ogóle efekt.

We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room."