Quote

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

Richard Whately

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
Humans
Reversed
Transactions
Judgment
Close
Objects
Law
Around
Optics
Human
Dimly

More quotes by Richard Whately

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Richard Whately
Image
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
Richard Whately
Image
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
Richard Whately
Image
He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
Richard Whately
Image
Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,--a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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