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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.

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
Wise
Foolishness
Business
Fools
Sometimes
Fail
Way
Ignorance
Men
Succeed
Failing
Fool
Coolly
Danger
Hazardous

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Women never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises and they always poke the fire from the top.
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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
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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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Ethical maxims are bandied about as a sort of current coin of discourse, and, being never melted down for use, those that are of base metal are never detected.
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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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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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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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To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.
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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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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.
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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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