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Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.

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
Controversy
Necessary
Though
Evil
Sometimes
Always

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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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It is quite possible, and not uncommon, to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all,--that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject.
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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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Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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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 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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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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Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.
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If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
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It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.
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It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,--a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.
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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
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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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Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.
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The more secure we feel against our liability to any error to which, in fact, we are liable, the greater must be our danger of falling into it.
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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
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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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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
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