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Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving.

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
Horses
Driving
Horse
Conscience
Follow
Sense
May
Persons
Dictates

More quotes by 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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Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.
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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
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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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Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
Richard Whately
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Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.
Richard Whately
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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.
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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Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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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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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
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A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
Richard Whately
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When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.
Richard Whately
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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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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To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.
Richard Whately