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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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Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
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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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Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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As there are dim-sighted people who live in a sort of perpetual twilight, so there are some who, having neither much clearness of head nor a very elevated tone of morality, are perpetually haunted by suspicions of everybody and everything.
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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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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
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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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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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Proverbs accordingly are somewhat analogous to those medical Formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready-made-up in the chemists’ shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct Prescription.
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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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As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft clay without stamping its mark on it, so hardly any reading can interest a child, without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterwards totally forgotten, to form the character.
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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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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
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It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
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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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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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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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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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Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
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