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William Hazlitt war ein englischer Essayist und Schriftsteller.

Hazlitt war der Sohn eines unitarischen Geistlichen. Die Maler John Hazlitt und Peggy Hazlitt waren seine Geschwister. Sein Vater zog 1780 mit der Familie nach Bandon, County Cork, und drei Jahre später in die USA. Dort gründete er u. a. in Boston die First Unitarian Church.

1787 kam Hazlitt mit seiner Familie wieder zurück nach Großbritannien und ließ sich in Wem, Shropshire nieder. Auf Wunsch des Vaters sollte Hazlitt Theologie studieren und dieses versuchte er am Hackney College in London. Nach einem Jahr brach Hazlitt sein Studium ab und versuchte eine künstlerische Ausbildung in Paris. Dies brach er zugunsten der Literatur ab. Sein Bruder John war inzwischen bei Sir Joshua Reynolds in der Ausbildung.

Zurück in London, machte er sich bald bei den Romantikern einen Namen. Mit Samuel Taylor Coleridge und William Wordsworth befreundete er sich. Auch mit den Geschwistern Charles Lamb und Mary Lamb machte er Bekanntschaft. 1808 heiratete Hazlitt mit 30 Jahren Sarah Stoddart, eine enge Freundin der Geschwister Lamb. Durch diese Heirat wurde John Stoddart, der Herausgeber von The Times sein Schwager. Hazlitt ließ sich mit seiner Frau in Winterslow, Salisbury nieder.

Ab 1812 war Hazlitt hauptberuflich als Essayist für verschiedene Zeitungen und Zeitschriften wie The Times und Edinburgh Review tätig. Während er beruflich erfolgreich war, gab es in seiner Ehe zunehmende Probleme. 1819 trennte Sarah sich von Hazlitt, 1822 wurde die Ehe endgültig geschieden.

Ab 1820 wohnte Hazlitt in einer kleinen Pension in London und hatte eine Affaire mit der 19-jährigen Tochter des Hauses, Sarah Walker. Er hoffte, sie nach seiner Scheidung heiraten zu können, wurde jedoch abgewiesen. Enttäuscht veröffentlichte er anonym eine wenig verschleierte Darstellung seiner Liebe zu Sarah Walker unter dem Titel Liber Amoris. Seine Urheberschaft blieb nicht lange verborgen. Es kam zum Skandal und seine journalistische Karriere war zu Ende.

1824 heiratete er ein zweites Mal, und zwar Isabella Bridgwater, geb. Shaw, die er jedoch in keinem seiner Werke je erwähnt.

Verarmt und vereinsamt starb William Hazlitt am 18. September 1830 in London und fand seine letzte Ruhestätte auf dem Friedhof St. Anne in Soho.

Gerade seine Essays begründeten den Ruhm Hazlitts. Sie kommentieren und widerspiegeln unverfälscht den Zeitgeist und haben größtenteils bis heute nicht an Bedeutung verloren. Wikipedia  

✵ 10. April 1778 – 18. September 1830   •   Andere Namen 威廉·赫茲利特
William Hazlitt Foto
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William Hazlitt Berühmte Zitate

„Die Kunst zu erfreuen besteht darin, selbst erfreut zu sein.“

William Hazlitt

Round Table I, On Manners, 1817

„Es ist besser, weder lesen noch schreiben zu können, als weiter nichts zu können.“

William Hazlitt

Table Talk, 1821 - 1822

„Im Schlaf sind wir keine Heuchler.“

William Hazlitt

The Plain Speaker, On Dreams, 1826

„Wir werden nie etwas gut machen, bis wir aufhören, nachzudenken, wie wir es machen werden.“

William Hazlitt

Sketches and Essays

„Worte sind die einzigen Dinge, die nie vergehen.“

William Hazlitt

Table Talk

William Hazlitt: Zitate auf Englisch

“One has no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns readers…He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist; "lays waste" a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon the government itself. He is kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.”

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William Hazlitt

"On the Character of Cobbett"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

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

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William Hazlitt

This is from Hazlitt's "Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A.," New Monthly Magazine (1826-1827), published in book form in 1830; but the words were spoken by Northcote
Misattributed

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Cant and Hypocrisy"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Living to One's-Self"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Application to Study"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On the Look of a Gentleman"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

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

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William Hazlitt

"American Literature — Dr. Channing," Edinburgh Review, (October 1829), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On the Spirit of Obligations"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“Zeal will do more than knowledge.”

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William Hazlitt

" On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/DiffWritSpeak.htm"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“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!”

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William Hazlitt

"Why Distant Objects Please"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On the Ignorance of the Learned"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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?”

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William Hazlitt

"The Modern Gradus ad Parnassum," London Weekly Review (17 May 1828), reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt (1925), edited by P. P. Howe

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

No. 156
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Knowledge of the World"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Prejudice"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Milton's Sonnets"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Criticism"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

" On Cant and Hypocrisy http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/CantHypocrisy.htm", London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828)
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

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

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William Hazlitt

No. 429
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Wit and Humour"
Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Thought and Action" http://books.google.com/books?id=9NU3AAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+great+requisite%22+%22for+the+prosperous+management+of+ordinary+business+is+the+want+of+imagination%22&pg=PA241#v=onepage
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

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

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William Hazlitt

No. 101
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

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

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William Hazlitt

"On Vulgarity and Affectation" http://books.google.com/books?id=gykJAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Violent+antipathies+are+always+suspicious+and+betray+a+secret+affinity%22&pg=PA377#v=onepage
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On the Past and Future"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"A Farewell to Essay-Writing" (March 1828)
Winterslow: Essays and Characters (1850)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On Vulgarity and Affectation"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“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.”

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William Hazlitt

"On People With One Idea"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

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