On the Love of Life - William Hazlitt

On the Love of Life

William Hazlitt

 In On the Love of Life, William Hazlitt challenges the common belief that our strong attachment to life proves that life is necessarily happy or valuable. He argues that this reasoning is misleading. People of all conditions—the rich and the poor, the happy and the miserable, the young and the old—cling to life with equal intensity. If attachment to life were based purely on enjoyment, then those who suffer most would be the most willing to give it up. Yet the opposite is often true. Hazlitt therefore suggests that our love of life arises from a deeper principle than simple happiness.

According to Hazlitt, the love of life springs not from enjoyment but from passion and action. Life is precious to us because it allows us to desire, to hope, to strive, and to imagine. Without life, there can be no pursuit of goals, no dreams of success, and no possibility of change. We cling to existence because it holds the promise of future fulfilment, even if the present is full of disappointment. People are often ready to sacrifice the present moment for some imagined future joy. Life, then, becomes a means to an end—a journey toward certain “green sunny spots” in the distance that we long to reach.

Hazlitt further observes that our reluctance to die increases with the intensity of our passions and disappointments. Those who have struggled greatly or feel they have not yet achieved their desires are especially unwilling to give up life. Even tyrants, who possess power but little peace, rarely choose death because they remain attached to their ambitions and illusions. Similarly, the miser, the ambitious man, and the disappointed lover continue their restless pursuits, even when they gain little pleasure from them. This shows that the strength of passion does not always correspond to happiness.

The essay also suggests that imagination plays a powerful role in binding us to life. The mere possibility of future good becomes more attractive when threatened by death. Compared to the “darkness of the grave,” even a dull or painful existence appears bright. Hazlitt supports this idea by referring to poetic reflections, including lines from John Milton, which express the fear of losing consciousness and thought, even in suffering. To exist, however painfully, seems preferable to being nothing at all. Our consciousness, imagination, and sense of identity fasten us to life like a spell.

In conclusion, Hazlitt does not attempt to measure whether life contains more pleasure than pain. Instead, he argues that our attachment to life is not a reliable test of its happiness. We love life because it is the arena of passion, hope, ambition, and imagination. To be something—to feel, to desire, to act—is better than to be nothing. Thus, the love of life is rooted less in contentment and more in the restless energy of human nature itself.