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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

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

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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.
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Better too much form than too little.
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Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
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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.
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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.
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If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
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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.
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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.
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All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
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It is a remarkable circumstance in reference to cunning persons that they are often deficient not only in comprehensive, far-sighted wisdom, but even in prudent, cautious circumspection.
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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
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All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
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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.
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Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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