A Quote by William Hazlitt

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.

William Hazlitt

Quote Topics

Against Greatest Ill Offence Speak Virtue

Quote Author

William Hazlitt
English - Critic
April 10, 1778 - September 18, 1830

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.

Henry Grunwald

Of ill-temper there are three kinds: irascibility, bitterness, sullenness. It belongs to the ill-tempered man to be unable to bear either small slights or defeats but to be given to retaliation and revenge, and easily moved to anger by any chance deed or word. Ill-temper is accompanied by excitability of character, instability, bitter speech, and liability to take offence at trifles and to feel these feelings quickly and on slight occasions.

Aristotle

To be evenminded is the greatest virtue. Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature.

Heraclitus

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

William Hazlitt

Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.

Ezra Pound

When an oath is taken ... the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods.

Sophocles

How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak?

Robert Green Ingersoll

People who say not to speak ill of the dead are hypocrites, because you can take it ot the bank they're thinking ill.

Nora Roberts

This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense; For ev'n the ears of such as have no skill, Perceive a discord, and conceive offence; And knowing not what's good, yet find the ill.

Sir John Davies

Do not criticize any other martial arts or speak ill of others, as it will surely come back to you. The mountain does not laugh at the river because it is lowly, nor does the river speak ill of the mountain because it can not move.

Koichi Tohei

Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.

Paul Klee

Do you want to injure someone's reputation? Don't speak ill of him, speak too well.

Andre Siegfried

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge.

Napoleon Hill

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

Benjamin Franklin

A Latin phrase says: De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Speak no ill of the dead. But it is better to say this way: Speak the truth of the living and speak the truth of the dead!