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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
Current
Coin
Currents
Maxims
Sort
Coins
Use
Metal
Never
Metals
Discourse
Bandied
Base
Detected
Ethical
Melted

More quotes by Richard Whately

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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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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
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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.
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He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
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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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Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
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The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
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Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
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As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft clay without stamping its mark on it, so hardly any reading can interest a child, without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterwards totally forgotten, to form the character.
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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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The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.
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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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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.
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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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Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
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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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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
Richard Whately
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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Richard Whately