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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
Judgment
Erring
Follow
Corrupted
Danger
Traditions
Another
Exchange
Order
Uncertain

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Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
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Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
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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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Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
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Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
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Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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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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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
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It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
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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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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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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
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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.
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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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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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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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Better too much form than too little.
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Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
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It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
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