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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
Horse
Conscience
Follow
Sense
May
Persons
Dictates
Horses
Driving

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Eloquence is relative. One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition than the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing for whom it is intended.
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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.
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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
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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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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.
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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
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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.
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If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
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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.
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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out for one pretext after another to justify his hostility.
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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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Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
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Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all.
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To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.
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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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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