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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

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Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
System
Founded
Language
Rhetoric
Use
Correct
Complaining
Logic
Rules
Complains
Understood
Analogous
Respect
Grammar

More quotes by Richard Whately

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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.
Richard Whately
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Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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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
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Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Richard Whately
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He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
Richard Whately
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It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others.
Richard Whately
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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Richard Whately
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The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive.
Richard Whately
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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
Richard Whately
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Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
Richard Whately
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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
Richard Whately
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Proverbs accordingly are somewhat analogous to those medical Formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready-made-up in the chemists’ shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct Prescription.
Richard Whately
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately