On The Pleasure of Hating Quotes

“Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“In private life do we not see hypocrisy, servility, selfishness, folly, and impudence succeed, while modesty shrinks from the encounter, and merit is trodden under foot? How often is 'the rose plucked from the forehead of a virtuous love to plant a blister there!' What chance is there of the success of real passion? What certainty of its continuance? Seeing all this as I do, and unravelling the web of human life into its various threads of meanness, spite, cowardice, want of feeling, and want of understanding, of indifference towards others, and ignorance of ourselves, – seeing custom prevail over all excellence, itself giving way to infamy – mistaken as I have been in my public and private hopes, calculating others from myself, and calculating wrong; always disappointed where I placed most reliance; the dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; – have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“We cannot read the same works forever. Our honey-moon, even though we wed the Muse, must come to an end; and it is followed by indifference, if not by disgust.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“have I not the reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“Even a highwayman, in the way of trade, may blow out your brains, but if he uses foul language at the same time, I should say he was no gentleman.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and a narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“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.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating

“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.”
― William Hazlitt, On The Pleasure of Hating