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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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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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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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The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.
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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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Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.
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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.
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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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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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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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A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
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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.
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The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.
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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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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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He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
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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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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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Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
Richard Whately