The Plain Speaker V1 Quotes

“Refinement creates beauty everywhere: it is the grossness of the spectator that discovers nothing but grossness in the object.”
― William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker V1: Opinions on Books, Men and Things

“If love at first sight were mutual, or to be conciliated by kind offices; if the fondest affection were not so often repaid and chilled by indifference and scorn; if so many lovers both before and since the madman in Don Quixote had not ‘worshipped a statue, hunted the wind, cried aloud to the desert’; if friendship were lasting; if merit were renown, and renown were health, riches, and long life; or if the homage of the world were paid to conscious worth and the true aspirations after excellence, instead of its gaudy signs and outward trappings, then indeed I might be of opinion that it is better to live to others than one’s self; but as the case stands, I incline to the negative side of the question.”
― William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things; Volume I

“Infinite are the mortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity; numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still the vicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success.”
― William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things; Volume I