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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
Always
Controversy
Necessary
Though
Evil
Sometimes

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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.
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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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Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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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.
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It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others.
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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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Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.
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.
Richard Whately
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Women never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises and they always poke the fire from the top.
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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
Richard Whately