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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
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Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
Failure
Law
Suffering
Effecting
Purpose
Deter
Every
Penalty
Men
Penalties
Instance
Prison
More quotes by Richard Whately
Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately
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
Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
Richard Whately
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Richard Whately
Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
Richard Whately
Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
Richard Whately
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
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
It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately
Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out for one pretext after another to justify his hostility.
Richard Whately
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
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.
Richard Whately
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
Richard Whately
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
Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
As there are dim-sighted people who live in a sort of perpetual twilight, so there are some who, having neither much clearness of head nor a very elevated tone of morality, are perpetually haunted by suspicions of everybody and everything.
Richard Whately
It is a good plan, with a young person of a character to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd representations, to show him plainly by examples that there is nothing which may not be thus represented. He will hardly need to be told that everything is not a mere joke.
Richard Whately
A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
Richard Whately
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Richard Whately
