Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William HazlittRead
There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We often misrepresent our true feelings towards our friends, believing we respect them more than we actually do.
In this quote, William Hazlitt points out the self-deception we engage in regarding our feelings for friends. He suggests that our esteem for friends is often superficial, influenced by their actions and our perceptions, rather than being a genuine and stable regard for them.
Themes
FriendshipSelf-DeceptionEsteemPerceptionRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the nature of true friendship, one could reference Hazlitt's insights into self-deception.
More from William Hazlitt
All quotes →The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William HazlittRead
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
William HazlittRead
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
William HazlittRead
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
William HazlittRead
One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.
William HazlittRead
Similar quotes
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
Jerry SpinelliRead
I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
People really do like seeing their best friends humiliated; a large part of the friendship is based on humiliation; and that is an old truth,well known to all intelligent people.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
I think about how much depends upon a best friend. Then you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it's not.
John GreenRead
I listened so hard because it felt like, while she was telling me stories, she was massaging my soul, letting me know that I was not alone, that I will never have to be alone, that there are friends and family and churches and coffee shops. I was not going to be cast into space.
Donald MillerRead