'We are wedded to opinion, to fancy, to prejudice; which destroys the soundness of our judgements, and the serenity and buoyancy of our feelings. The chain of habit coils itself round the heart, like a serpent to gnaw and stifle it. It grows rigid and callous; and for the softness and elasticity of childhood, full of proud flesh and obstinate tumours. The violence and perversity of our passions comes in more and more to overlay our natural sensibility and well-grounded affections; and we screw ourselves up to aim only at those things which are neither desirable nor practicable. Thus life passes away in the feverish irritation of pursuit and the certainty of disappointment.'
William Hazlitt