Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
Discourse
Bandied
Base
Detected
Ethical
Melted
Current
Coin
Currents
Maxims
Sort
Coins
Use
Metal
Never
Metals

More quotes by Richard Whately

Image
The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
Richard Whately
Image
When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
Image
The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless.
Richard Whately
Image
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
Happiness is no laughing matter.
Richard Whately
Image
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Richard Whately
Image
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
As a science, logic institutes an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning, and investigating the principles on which argumentation is conducted as an art, it furnishes such rules as may be derived from those principles, for guarding against erroneous deductions.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately