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

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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
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All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
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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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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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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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Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
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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.
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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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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
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Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.
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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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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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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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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.
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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.
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
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It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Richard Whately