We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.
William Hazlitt Quotes
The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte’s sister, who was no saint, sat to (the artist Antonio) Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, “No. There was a fire in the room.”
With all his boasted simplicity and love of the country, he seldom launches out into general descriptions of nature: he looks at her over his clipped hedges, and from his well-swept garden-walks; or if he makes a bolder experiment now and then, it is with an air of precaution, as if he were afraid of […]
A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.
Whatever interests, is interesting.
The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out of maliscious imputations against any character leaves a stain which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.
The more we do, the more we can do.
Imagination has more charms in writing than in speaking. It must fold its wings when it enters a salon.
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
