Summary of ‘On the Love of Life’

William Hazlitt’s essay “On the love of life”, is interrogation about the ‘life’ of every individual,
he poses very simple questions, how much do an individual love his/her life, what is/are the
factor/s that keep an individual to act, what is/are the reason/s that stop an individual not to act,
what is the role of happiness in life, how much we value our life etc…

Hazlitt initiates by saying he is not going to discuss what life is on the whole, to be regarded as a
blessing or to depend upon sage’s saying only because life is unpredictable. Everyone feel in
common that the importance in life is happiness or misery, but Hazlitt argues that in life
enjoyment is not important rather it is the PASSION, because in life it is very important to act or
to do action only with that a human can live life to the fullest, a human should have aims/objects
to achieve so in that process he/she will live the life. Hazlitt is against those persons who are
spending their life in idle or in vain without any action. Further he draws few examples i.e. the
school boy – counts the time till the return of the holiday; minor longs to be of age; the lover is
impatient till he is married; all these persons are pretending to be happy in their life; Hope and
fancy are the things in which much our life is spent and we ignore our passions and the precious
time by doing this, and we are not living the present life only because there is the end to life that
is death.

‘AN OUNCE OF SWEET IS WORTH A POUND OF SOUR’ Hazlitt quotes this to illustrate the
taste of success, most part of our life we suffer with depression and once if we achieve the
success we forget all our depression at once, our life is filled with passions and enjoyments, so in
the process of our passions there are mental disturbances than in prospect of success. So he says
whether life is accompanied with pleasure or pain it doesn’t matter because it is of no use,
because what is important in life is the interest towards life. It is quite common in life there are
ups and downs so one shouldn’t quit living because of these, so Hazlitt says, ‘to be something is
better than to be nothing.’ Passion, imagination, self-will, and the sense of power these are the
very consciousness of human existence, because all these tie our life; Milton in Paradise Lost
says philosophically through fallen angel that “one who quit with pain is the loser, and it is a sad
cure, because God has created humans to strive in life.”

Throughout this essay Hazlitt points that PASSION is the important thing that keeps a human
lively in life, Hazlitt suggest that a human who toils hard in life and indulge in the passion are
living their life. It is not happiness or the enjoyment but the passion.