William Hazlitt
English essayist
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, On Nicknames, 1818
Posted on April 16, 2004 at 2:44 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
All provincial or bye-phrases come under the same mark of reprobation — all such as the writer transfers to the page from his fireside or a particular coterie, or that he invents for his own sole use and convenience. I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them circulation or value. I am fastidious in this respect, and would almost as soon coin the currency of the realm as counterfeit the King's English.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, On Familiar Style, 1821
Posted on February 4, 2000 at 11:10 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Argument, again, is the death of conversation, if carried on in a spirit of hostility: but discussion is a pleasant and profitable thing, where you advance and defend your opinions as far as you can, and admit the truth of what is objected against them with equal impartiality.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, On the Conversation of Authors, 1826
Posted on September 9, 1999 at 8:38 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, Characteristics, 1823
Posted on September 30, 2002 at 8:50 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, Lectures on the English Poets
Posted on September 25, 2003 at 8:23 PM
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