Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn, and laughter.

Hazlitt argues that the most effective education often comes not from comfort or abstract instruction but from high-stakes experience. “Danger” forces attention, quick judgment, and humility; it strips away complacency and reveals what one actually knows. He extends the lesson to social and moral pressures—disgrace, defeat, exposure, scorn, and laughter—which can be painful but clarifying, compelling people to correct errors, develop resilience, and sharpen self-knowledge. The line reflects Hazlitt’s broader interest in how character and intellect are formed through conflict and friction rather than ease, and it suggests a pragmatic, unsentimental view of human improvement: we learn fastest when consequences are immediate and public.