Frases de William Hazlitt

página 5

“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.”

“Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.”

“Again, there is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion.”

“There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.”

“We grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”

“A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.”

“The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.”

“The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour.”

“Zeal will do more than knowledge.”

“There is (so to speak) "a mighty stream of tendency" to good in the human mind, upon which all objects float and are imperceptibly borne along; and though in the voyage of life we meet with strong rebuffs, with rocks and quicksands, yet there is a "a tide in the affairs of men," a heaving and a restless aspiration of the soul, by means of which, "with sails and tackle torn," the wreck and scattered fragments of our entire being drift into the port and haven of our desires!”

“The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.”

“Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking! … I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.”

“Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?”

“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.”

“The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.”

“Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.”

“Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power and fashion … who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the day. There are persons in common life who … can so little bear to be left for any length of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and folly, that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their characters … Milton was not one of these. He had lofty contemplative principle, and consciousness of inward power and worth, [not] to be tempted by such idle baits.”

“The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics — mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.”

“Indeed some degree of affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body; we must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.”

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

“Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.”

“The great requisite … for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination.”

“I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.”

“Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.”

“There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.”

“Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.”

“The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view; the past is alive and stirring with objects, bright or solemn, and of unfading interest.”

“To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.”

“Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. … True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies of others; as true refinement turns away from grossness and deformity, instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it. … Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority; nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse and homely.”

“Scholars, like princes, may learn something by being incognito. Yet we see those who cannot go into a bookseller's shop, or bear to be five minutes in a stage-coach, without letting you know who they are. They carry their reputation about with them as the snail does its shell, and sit under its canopy, like the lady in the lobster. I cannot understand this at all. What is the use of a man's always revolving round his own little circle? He must, one should think, be tired of it himself, as well as tire other people.”