Richard Whately Quotes & Sayings

It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary. — Richard Whately

The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation; but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive. — Richard Whately

The relief that is afforded to mere want, as want, tends to increase that want. — Richard Whately

Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves. — Richard Whately

It is a good plan, with a young person of a character to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd representations, to show him plainly by examples that there is nothing which may not be thus represented. He will hardly need to be told that everything is not a mere joke. — Richard Whately

To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another. — Richard Whately

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived. — Richard Whately

Some persons resemble certain trees, such as the nut, which flowers in February and ripens its fruit in September; or the juniper and the arbutus; which take a whole year or more to perfect their fruit; and others, the cherry, which takes between two an three months. — Richard Whately

Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one. — Richard Whately

Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved. — Richard Whately

It is an awful, an appalling thought, that we may be, this moment and every moment, in the presence of malignant spirits. — Richard Whately

It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others. — Richard Whately

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price. — Richard Whately

Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd. — Richard Whately

Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill. — Richard Whately

The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it. — Richard Whately

When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism. — Richard Whately

Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong. — Richard Whately

As the telescope is not a substitute for, but an aid to, our sight, so revelation is not designed to supersede the use of reason, but to supply its deficiencies. — Richard Whately

Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary. — Richard Whately

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument. — Richard Whately

Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves. — Richard Whately

Knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy. — Richard Whately

One way in which fools succeed where wise men fail is that through ignorance of the danger they sometimes go coolly about a hazardous business. — Richard Whately

Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars; just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,
the every-day life of each particular time and country. — Richard Whately

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter. — Richard Whately

Fancy, when once brought into religion, knows not where to stop. It is like one of those fiends in old stories which any one could raise, but which, when raised, could never be kept within the magic circle. — Richard Whately

It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive. — Richard Whately

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it. — Richard Whately

As an exercise of the reasoning faculties, pure mathematics is an admirable exercise, because it consists of reasoning alone and does not encumber the student with any exercise of judgment. — Richard Whately

Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded. — Richard Whately

Proverbs accordingly are somewhat analogous to those medical Formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready-made-up in the chemists' shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct Prescription. — Richard Whately

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man. — Richard Whately

Good manners are a part of good morals. — Richard Whately

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do. — Richard Whately

The more secure we feel against our liability to any error to which, in fact, we are liable, the greater must be our danger of falling into it. — Richard Whately

It is folly to shiver over last year's snow. — Richard Whately

Happiness is no laughing matter. — Richard Whately

There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true. — Richard Whately

Vices and frailties correct each other, like acids and alkalies. If each vicious man had but one vice, I do not know how the world could go on. — Richard Whately

Trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have once become bewildered, but to repeated trials at intervals. — Richard Whately

As there are dim-sighted people who live in a sort of perpetual twilight, so there are some who, having neither much clearness of head nor a very elevated tone of morality, are perpetually haunted by suspicions of everybody and everything. — Richard Whately

Not in books only, nor yet in oral discourse, but often also in words there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up, from which lessons of infinite worth may be derived. — Richard Whately

Anger requires that the offender should not only be made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which has been done by him. — Richard Whately

The heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true; it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none. The very pretension to truth, the very demand of faith, were characteristic distinctions of Christianity. — Richard Whately

The censure of frequent and long parentheses has led writers into the preposterous expedient of leaving out the marks by which they are indicated. It is no cure to a lame man to take away his crutches. — Richard Whately

All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of truth. — Richard Whately

Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object. — Richard Whately

Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest. — Richard Whately

Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less. — Richard Whately

The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless. — Richard Whately

It is quite possible, and not uncommon, to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all,
that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject. — Richard Whately

It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees. — Richard Whately

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts. — Richard Whately

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory. — Richard Whately

Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind. — Richard Whately

Misgive that you may not mistake. — Richard Whately

The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind ... — Richard Whately

As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft clay without stamping its mark on it, so hardly any reading can interest a child, without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterwards totally forgotten, to form the character. — Richard Whately

A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune. — Richard Whately

We may print, but not stereotype, our opinions. — Richard Whately

To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air. — Richard Whately

Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood. — Richard Whately

A man will never change his mind if he have no mind to change. — Richard Whately

As a science, logic institutes an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning, and investigating the principles on which argumentation is conducted; as an art, it furnishes such rules as may be derived from those principles, for guarding against erroneous deductions. — Richard Whately

The attendant on William Rufus, who discharged at a deer an arrow, which glanced against a tree and killed the king, was no murderer, because he had no such design. And, on the other hand, a man who should lie in wait to assassinate another, and pull the trigger of a gun with that intent, would be morally a murderer, not the less though the gun should chance to miss fire. — Richard Whately

The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction. — Richard Whately

As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, 'What is truth?' — Richard Whately

Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term. — Richard Whately

A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables. — Richard Whately

Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself? Your looking-glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face. — Richard Whately

In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed; we see the most indistinctly the objects which are close around us. — Richard Whately

Better too much form than too little. — Richard Whately

Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil. — Richard Whately

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on. — Richard Whately

Ethical maxims are bandied about as a sort of current coin of discourse, and, being never melted down for use, those that are of base metal are never detected. — Richard Whately

All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support. — Richard Whately

Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving. — Richard Whately

He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge. — Richard Whately

If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed. — Richard Whately

Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience
more desirous of security than of safety. — Richard Whately

Women never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the fire from the top. — Richard Whately

The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity. — Richard Whately

Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light. — Richard Whately

Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance. — Richard Whately

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth. — Richard Whately

Eloquence is relative. One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition than the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing for whom it is intended. — Richard Whately

It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly. — Richard Whately

Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice; but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all. — Richard Whately

When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages. — Richard Whately

Man, considered not merely as an organized being, but as a rational agent and a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting specimen of Divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of. — Richard Whately

Party spirit enlists a man's virtues in the cause of his vices. — Richard Whately

Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected and nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated form; but a fallacy which, when stated barely in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume. — Richard Whately

To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself. — Richard Whately

Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors. — Richard Whately

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's. — Richard Whately

No one complains of the rules of Grammar as fettering Language; because it is understood that correct use is not founded on Grammar, but Grammar on correct use. A just system of Logic or of Rhetoric is analogous, in this respect, to Grammar.. — Richard Whately

He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion. — Richard Whately

An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads. — Richard Whately

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works. — Richard Whately