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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
Suffering
Effecting
Purpose
Deter
Every
Penalty
Men
Penalties
Instance
Prison
Failure
Law

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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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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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Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
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Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
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He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
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It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe to God for any blessing, is, that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.
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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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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 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.
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One way in which fools succeed where wise men fail is that through ignorance of the danger they sometimes go coolly about a hazardous business.
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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
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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.
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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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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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The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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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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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