Frases de William Hazlitt

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“La peor vejez es la del espíritu.”

“Un apodo es la piedra más dura que el diablo puede arrojar a una persona”

“Aquellos incapaces autores son los que nunca escribieron.”

“El amor a la libertad es amor al prójimo; el amor al poder es amor a sí mismo.”

“El silencio es una de las artes más grandes de la conversación.”

“Los hombres despiertos no tienen más que un mundo, pero los hombres dormidos tienen cada uno su mundo propio.”

“La naturaleza parece (cuanto más la observamos) hecha de aversiones: sin nada que odiar, perderíamos el auténtico resorte del pensamiento y de la acción. La vida se convertiría en una charca de agua estancada si no la agitaran los intereses opuestos y la pasiones irrefrenables de los hombres. La línea blanca de nuestro destino resplandece (o por lo menos se hace visible) cuando se oscurece al máximo su entorno, de la misma manera en que el arco iris pinta su propia forma sobre una nube. ¿Es orgullo? ¿Es envidia? ¿Es la fuerza del contraste? ¿Es debilidad o malicia? Lo cierto es que en la mente humana existe una atracción secreta, un ansia de maldad que encuentra un deleite perverso, y a la vez gozoso, en la fechoría, pues es una fuente inagotable de satisfacciones. La bondad absoluta no tarda en volverse insípida, carente de variedad y brío. El sufrimiento es agridulce, y no sacia nunca. El amor se convierte, con un poco de indulgencia, en indiferencia o en hastío: Únicamente el odio es inmortal.”

“Las personas hábiles son los instrumentos con que trabajan los viles.”

“Me gustaría emplear toda mi vida en viajar, si alguien pudiera prestarme después otra vida para pasármela en casa.”

“Todos somos, en mayor o menor medida, esclavos de la opinión pública.”

“Todo aquello que se encuentra fuera del alcance del sentido y del conocimiento, todo aquello que se percibe defectuosamente, la imaginación lo recompone a su antojo; y todo menos el momento presente, menos el lugar presente, la pasión lo reclama para sí, lo incuba con las alas extendidas y le imprime su propia imagen. La pasión es dueña del espacio infinito y los objetos distantes nos gustan porque limitan con sus confines y se moldean con su contacto.”

“El amor y la felicidad son almas gemelas, o nacen una de otra.”

“La agudeza es la sal de la conversación, no la carne.”

“La gente más callada es, de ordinario, la que mejor piensa en sí misma.”

“La moda comienza y termina siempre por las dos cosas que más aborrece: la singularidad y la vulgaridad.”

“La prosperidad es un gran maestro; la adversidad es mucho más grande. La posesión embota la mente, la adversidad la fortalece.”

“Las antipatías violentas son siempre sospechosas y revelan una secreta afinidad.”

“Nunca empleamos más acertadamente nuestros vicios que en combatir a los unos y a los otros.”

“Un buen carácter vale tanto como un buen patrimonio.”

“Una cosa no es vulgar por el hecho de ser corriente.”

“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.”

“I think it is a rule that men in business should not be taught other things. Any one will be almost sure to make money who has no other idea in his head. A college education, or intense study of abstract truth, will not enable a man to drive a bargain … The best politicians are not those who are deeply grounded in mathematical or in ethical science. Rules stand in the way of expediency. Many a man has been hindered from pushing his fortune in the world by an early cultivation of his moral sense.”

“But there is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.”

“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.”

“If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power, for you necessarily feel some towards him; and since he will take no denial, you must comply with his peremptory demands, or send for a constable, which out of respect for his character you will not do.”

“Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favor) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.”

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

“The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.”

“Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.”

“Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.”

“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.”

“It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.”

“Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!”

“No young man believes he shall ever die.”

“The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.”

“We all wear some disguise — make some professions — use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may endeavour to keep some others that we think less to our credit as much as possible in the background…”

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

“One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.”

“Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.”

“We can scarcely hate any one that we know.”

“All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.”

“Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.”

“Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.”

“Very trifling circumstances do give great and daily annoyance, and as often prove too much for our philosophy and forbearance, as matters of the highest moment. … The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can … To great evils we submit; we resent little provocations.”

“He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.”

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

“Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.”

“For my own part, as I once said, I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.”

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