William Hazlitt Quotes on Wisdom & Knowledge (10 Quotes)

Zeal will do more than knowledge.

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

There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes. . .

That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.

Learning is the knowledge of that which is not generally known to others, and which we can only derive at second-hand from books or other artificial sources. The knowledge of that which is before us, or about us, which appeals to our experience, passions, and pursuits, to the bosom and businesses of men, is not learning. Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.

There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction but they have one that neutralizes all these --they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.