Quote

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

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Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
Imperfect
Avoid
Tradition
Erring
Judgment
Corrupted
Follow
Traditions
Danger
Exchange
Another
Order
Uncertain

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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.
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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
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Better too much form than too little.
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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.
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Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.
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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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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
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