Richard Whately quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Richard Whately

Richard Whately Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Richard Whately on Wise Famous Quotes.

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

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

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.

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

Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.

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

That is suitable to a man, in point of ornamental expense, not which he can afford to have, but which he can afford to lose.

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

Good manners are a part of good morals.

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

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

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

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.

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

The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.

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

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

Happiness is no laughing matter.

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

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

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.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.

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.

To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.

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

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

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

Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.

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

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.

The depreciation of Christianity by indifference is a more insidious and less curable evil than infidelity itself.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

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

Knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.

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

It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.

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

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.

A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.

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

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

Misgive that you may not mistake.

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

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

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

He who is unaware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge.

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

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.

We may print, but not stereotype, our opinions.

Better too much form than too little.

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

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

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

Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say.

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

All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.

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

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

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

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

There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.

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

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

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

Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong.