William Hazlitt's, The Plain Speaker

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF Plain Speaker
NOTE:
Originally, The Plain Speaker, a book on "Opinions on Books, Men, and Things," was published by Henry Colburn in 1826.

TITLE QUOTE
On Reading Old Books **
(February, 1821)
(35K) "I have more confidence in the dead than the living. ... If you want to know what any of the authors were who lived before our time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality."
On Personal Character
(March, 1821)
(40K) "... there is such a thing as an essential difference of character in different individuals. We do not change our features with our situations; neither do we change the capacities or inclinations which lurk beneath them."
On the Prose Style of Poets
(Aug.,1822)
(41K) "Poets are winged animals, and can cleave the air, like birds, with ease to themselves and delight to the beholders; but like those ‘feathered, two-legged things,’ when they light upon the ground of prose and matter-of-fact, they seem not to have the same use of their feet. ... The prose-writer is master of his materials: the poet is the slave of his style. Every thing showy, every thing extraneous tempts him, and he reposes idly on it: he is bent on pleasure, not on business."
On Dreams
(~1826)
(25k) "... shapes and colours come together are by the heat and violence of the brain referred to external nature, without regard to the order of time, place, or circumstance. From the same want of continuity, we often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again."
On Conversation of Authors
(1826)
(62k)

"A writer who has been accustomed to take a connected view of a difficult question and to work it out gradually in all its bearings, may be very deficient in that quickness and ease which men of the world, who are in the habit of hearing a variety of opinions, who pick up an observation on one subject, and another on another, and who care about none any farther than the passing away of an idle hour, usually acquire."
On Reason and Imagination **
(~1826)
38k) "I hate people who have no notion of any thing but generalities, and forms, and creeds, and naked propositions, even worse than I dislike those who cannot for the soul of them arrive at the comprehension of an abstract idea. ... Facts, concrete existences, are stubborn things, and are not so soon tampered with or turned about to any point we please, as mere names and abstractions. ... they are liable to be puffed away by every wind of doctrine, or baffled by every plea of convenience."
On Application to Study **
(~1826)
(35k) "Success prompts to exertion; and habit facilitates success. ... The more we do, the more we can do. ... He who does nothing, renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. ... Our expenditure of intellectual wealth makes us rich: we can only be liberal as we have previously accumulated the means. By lying idle, as by standing still, we are confined to the same trite, narrow round of topics: by continuing our efforts, as by moving forwards in a road, we extend our views, and discover continually new tracts of country. Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use."
On Londoners and Country People
(~1826)
(37k) "He [a Londoner] is confined to one spot, and to the present moment. He sees every thing near, superficial, little, in hasty succession. ... There is a glare, a perpetual hubbub, a noise, a crowd about him; he sees and hears a vast number of things, and knows nothing. ... [He] thinks there is no such thing as life or a knowledge of character to be found out of London. ... If there is an air of levity and indifference in London manners, there is a harshness, a moroseness, and disagreeable restraint in those of the country ... where the arrival of a stranger is an event ... Then indeed the stream of hospitality, so long dammed up, may flow without stint for a short season ..."
On the Old Age of Artists
(~1826)
(31k) "They [artists] break up commonly about forty, their spirits giving way with the disappointment of their hopes of excellence, or the want of encouragement for that which they have attained, their plans disconcerted, and their affairs irretrievable; and in this state of mortification and embarrassment (more or less prolonged and aggravated) they are either starved or else drink themselves to death. ... [however, some bear] a charmed life, that must not yield’ to duns, or critics, or patrons."
On Envy (A Dialogue)
(~1826)
(34k) The love of distinction is the ruling passion of the human mind; we grudge whatever draws off attention from ourselves to others; and all our actions are but different contrivances, either by sheer malice or affected liberality, to keep it to ourselves or share it with others. ... We do not always admire most what we can do best ... we reduce others to the limits of our own capacity. We think little of what we cannot do, and envy it where we imagine that it meets with disproportioned admiration from others. ... Envy is like a viper coiled up at the bottom of the heart, ready to spring upon and poison whatever approaches it. We live upon the vices, the imperfections, the misfortunes, and disappointments of others, as our natural food. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Even our pretended cordial admiration is only a subterfuge of our vanity.
On the Spirit of Obligations **
(January, 1824)
(30K) "I have observed that those who are the most inclined to assist others are the least forward or peremptory with their advice; for having our interest really at heart, they consider what can, rather than what cannot be done, and aid our views and endeavour to avert ill consequences by moderating our impatience and allaying irritations, instead of thwarting our main design, which only tends to make us more extravagant and violent then ever."
On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking **
(1825)
(52K) "Set the same person [the talker] to write a common paragraph, and he cannot get through it for very weariness: ask him a question, ever so little out of the common road, and he stares you in the face. What does all this bustle, animation, plausibility, and command of words amount to? A lively flow of animal spirits, a good deal of confidence, a communicative turn, and a tolerably tenacious memory with respect to floating opinions and current phrases. Beyond the routine of the daily newspapers and coffee-house criticism, such persons do not venture to think at all ... cant-phrases, arranged in sounding sentences ... levy no tax on the understanding. To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it ... He who offers to go into the grounds of an acknowledged axiom, risks the unanimity of the company ... he who digs to the foundation of a building to show its solidity, risks it falling."
On Depth and Superficiality
(1826)
(42K) "Our unconscious impressions necessarily give colour to, and re-act upon our conscious ones; and it is only when these two sets of feelings are in accord, that our pleasures are true and sincere; where there is a discordance and misunderstanding in this respect ... [then things ring] false and hollow. ... Both knowledge and sagacity are required, but sagacity abridges and anticipates the labour of knowledge and sometimes jumps instinctively at a conclusion; that is, the strength or fineness of the feeling by association or analogy, sooner elicits the recollection of a previous and forgotten one in different circumstances, and the two together, by a sort of internal evidence and collective force, stamp any proposed solution with the character of truth or falsehood."
On The Pleasure Of Hating
(1826)
(30K) "We feel the full force of the spirit of hatred with all of them in turn. ... we throw aside the trammels of civilization, the flimsy veil of humanity. ... The wild beast resumes its sway within us, we feel like hunting animals, and as the hound starts in his sleep and rushes on the chase in fancy the heart rouses itself in its native lair, and utters a wild cry of joy, at being restored once more to freedom and lawless unrestrained impulses. Every one has his full swing, or goes to the Devil his own way. Here are no ... long calculations of self-interest -- the will takes its instant way to its object, as the mountain-torrent flings itself over the precipice: the greatest possible good of each individual consists in doing all the mischief he can to his neighbour."
On The Qualifications Necessary To Success In Life**
(1826)
(43K) "Fortune does not always smile on merit ... the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ... To be thought wise, it is for the most part only necessary to seem so; and the noisy demagogue is easily translated, by the popular voice, into the orator and patriot. ... Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else. ... a dull plodding fellow will often do better than one of a more mercurial and fiery cast - the mere unconsciousness of his own deficiencies, or of any thing beyond what he himself can do, reconciles him to his mechanical progress, and enables him to perform all that lies in his power with labour and patience. By being content with mediocrity, he advances beyond it; whereas the man of greater taste or genius may be supposed to fling down his pen or pencil in despair, haunted with the idea of unattainable excellence, and ends in being nothing, because he cannot be every thing at once."
On Sitting for one's Picture
(Nov.,1823)
(___k) In Production
Whether Genius is conscious of its Powers?
(Jun.,1823)
(___k) In Production
On Dr. Spurzheim's Theory
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Egotism
(_______)
(___k) In Production
Hot and Cold
(1826)
(___k) In Production
The New School of Reform (A Dialogue between a Rationalist and a sentimentalist)
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On the Look of a Gentleman
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On People of Sense
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Antiquity
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On a Portrait of an English Lady, by Vandyke
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Novelty and Familiarity
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Old English Writers and Speakers
(Jan.,1825)
(___k) In Production
Madame Pasta and Mademoiselle Mars
(_______)
(___k) In Production
Sir Walter Scott, Racine, and Shakespear
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Respectable People
(_______)
(___k) In Production
On Jealousy and Spleen of Party
(_______)
(___k) In Production

(_______)
(___k) In Production

Found this material Helpful?

_______________________________

[UP]
[TOC -- Hazlitt's Page]
[Hazlitt's Works]
[General Essays]
[Round Table]
[Political Essays]
[Table-Talk]
[The Spirit of the Age]
[The Plain Speaker]
[HOME]

2011 (2020)

Peter Landry

TITLE	QUOTE
On Reading Old Books ** (February, 1821) (35K)	"I have more confidence in the dead than the living. ... If you want to know what any of the authors were who lived before our time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality."
On Personal Character (March, 1821) (40K)	"... there is such a thing as an essential difference of character in different individuals. We do not change our features with our situations; neither do we change the capacities or inclinations which lurk beneath them."
On the Prose Style of Poets (Aug.,1822) (41K)	"Poets are winged animals, and can cleave the air, like birds, with ease to themselves and delight to the beholders; but like those ‘feathered, two-legged things,’ when they light upon the ground of prose and matter-of-fact, they seem not to have the same use of their feet. ... The prose-writer is master of his materials: the poet is the slave of his style. Every thing showy, every thing extraneous tempts him, and he reposes idly on it: he is bent on pleasure, not on business."
On Dreams (~1826) (25k)	"... shapes and colours come together are by the heat and violence of the brain referred to external nature, without regard to the order of time, place, or circumstance. From the same want of continuity, we often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again."
On Conversation of Authors (1826) (62k)	"A writer who has been accustomed to take a connected view of a difficult question and to work it out gradually in all its bearings, may be very deficient in that quickness and ease which men of the world, who are in the habit of hearing a variety of opinions, who pick up an observation on one subject, and another on another, and who care about none any farther than the passing away of an idle hour, usually acquire."
On Reason and Imagination ** (~1826) 38k)	"I hate people who have no notion of any thing but generalities, and forms, and creeds, and naked propositions, even worse than I dislike those who cannot for the soul of them arrive at the comprehension of an abstract idea. ... Facts, concrete existences, are stubborn things, and are not so soon tampered with or turned about to any point we please, as mere names and abstractions. ... they are liable to be puffed away by every wind of doctrine, or baffled by every plea of convenience."
On Application to Study ** (~1826) (35k)	"Success prompts to exertion; and habit facilitates success. ... The more we do, the more we can do. ... He who does nothing, renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. ... Our expenditure of intellectual wealth makes us rich: we can only be liberal as we have previously accumulated the means. By lying idle, as by standing still, we are confined to the same trite, narrow round of topics: by continuing our efforts, as by moving forwards in a road, we extend our views, and discover continually new tracts of country. Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use."
On Londoners and Country People (~1826) (37k)	"He [a Londoner] is confined to one spot, and to the present moment. He sees every thing near, superficial, little, in hasty succession. ... There is a glare, a perpetual hubbub, a noise, a crowd about him; he sees and hears a vast number of things, and knows nothing. ... [He] thinks there is no such thing as life or a knowledge of character to be found out of London. ... If there is an air of levity and indifference in London manners, there is a harshness, a moroseness, and disagreeable restraint in those of the country ... where the arrival of a stranger is an event ... Then indeed the stream of hospitality, so long dammed up, may flow without stint for a short season ..."
On the Old Age of Artists (~1826) (31k)	"They [artists] break up commonly about forty, their spirits giving way with the disappointment of their hopes of excellence, or the want of encouragement for that which they have attained, their plans disconcerted, and their affairs irretrievable; and in this state of mortification and embarrassment (more or less prolonged and aggravated) they are either starved or else drink themselves to death. ... [however, some bear] a charmed life, that must not yield’ to duns, or critics, or patrons."
On Envy (A Dialogue) (~1826) (34k)	The love of distinction is the ruling passion of the human mind; we grudge whatever draws off attention from ourselves to others; and all our actions are but different contrivances, either by sheer malice or affected liberality, to keep it to ourselves or share it with others. ... We do not always admire most what we can do best ... we reduce others to the limits of our own capacity. We think little of what we cannot do, and envy it where we imagine that it meets with disproportioned admiration from others. ... Envy is like a viper coiled up at the bottom of the heart, ready to spring upon and poison whatever approaches it. We live upon the vices, the imperfections, the misfortunes, and disappointments of others, as our natural food. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Even our pretended cordial admiration is only a subterfuge of our vanity.
On the Spirit of Obligations ** (January, 1824) (30K)	"I have observed that those who are the most inclined to assist others are the least forward or peremptory with their advice; for having our interest really at heart, they consider what can, rather than what cannot be done, and aid our views and endeavour to avert ill consequences by moderating our impatience and allaying irritations, instead of thwarting our main design, which only tends to make us more extravagant and violent then ever."
On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking ** (1825) (52K)	"Set the same person [the talker] to write a common paragraph, and he cannot get through it for very weariness: ask him a question, ever so little out of the common road, and he stares you in the face. What does all this bustle, animation, plausibility, and command of words amount to? A lively flow of animal spirits, a good deal of confidence, a communicative turn, and a tolerably tenacious memory with respect to floating opinions and current phrases. Beyond the routine of the daily newspapers and coffee-house criticism, such persons do not venture to think at all ... cant-phrases, arranged in sounding sentences ... levy no tax on the understanding. To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it ... He who offers to go into the grounds of an acknowledged axiom, risks the unanimity of the company ... he who digs to the foundation of a building to show its solidity, risks it falling."
On Depth and Superficiality (1826) (42K)	"Our unconscious impressions necessarily give colour to, and re-act upon our conscious ones; and it is only when these two sets of feelings are in accord, that our pleasures are true and sincere; where there is a discordance and misunderstanding in this respect ... [then things ring] false and hollow. ... Both knowledge and sagacity are required, but sagacity abridges and anticipates the labour of knowledge and sometimes jumps instinctively at a conclusion; that is, the strength or fineness of the feeling by association or analogy, sooner elicits the recollection of a previous and forgotten one in different circumstances, and the two together, by a sort of internal evidence and collective force, stamp any proposed solution with the character of truth or falsehood."
On The Pleasure Of Hating (1826) (30K)	"We feel the full force of the spirit of hatred with all of them in turn. ... we throw aside the trammels of civilization, the flimsy veil of humanity. ... The wild beast resumes its sway within us, we feel like hunting animals, and as the hound starts in his sleep and rushes on the chase in fancy the heart rouses itself in its native lair, and utters a wild cry of joy, at being restored once more to freedom and lawless unrestrained impulses. Every one has his full swing, or goes to the Devil his own way. Here are no ... long calculations of self-interest -- the will takes its instant way to its object, as the mountain-torrent flings itself over the precipice: the greatest possible good of each individual consists in doing all the mischief he can to his neighbour."
On The Qualifications Necessary To Success In Life** (1826) (43K)	"Fortune does not always smile on merit ... the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ... To be thought wise, it is for the most part only necessary to seem so; and the noisy demagogue is easily translated, by the popular voice, into the orator and patriot. ... Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else. ... a dull plodding fellow will often do better than one of a more mercurial and fiery cast - the mere unconsciousness of his own deficiencies, or of any thing beyond what he himself can do, reconciles him to his mechanical progress, and enables him to perform all that lies in his power with labour and patience. By being content with mediocrity, he advances beyond it; whereas the man of greater taste or genius may be supposed to fling down his pen or pencil in despair, haunted with the idea of unattainable excellence, and ends in being nothing, because he cannot be every thing at once."
On Sitting for one's Picture (Nov.,1823) (___k)	In Production
Whether Genius is conscious of its Powers? (Jun.,1823) (___k)	In Production
On Dr. Spurzheim's Theory (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Egotism (_______) (___k)	In Production
Hot and Cold (1826) (___k)	In Production
The New School of Reform (A Dialogue between a Rationalist and a sentimentalist) (_______) (___k)	In Production
On the Look of a Gentleman (_______) (___k)	In Production
On People of Sense (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Antiquity (_______) (___k)	In Production
On a Portrait of an English Lady, by Vandyke (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Novelty and Familiarity (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Old English Writers and Speakers (Jan.,1825) (___k)	In Production
Madame Pasta and Mademoiselle Mars (_______) (___k)	In Production
Sir Walter Scott, Racine, and Shakespear (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Respectable People (_______) (___k)	In Production
On Jealousy and Spleen of Party (_______) (___k)	In Production
(_______) (___k)	In Production