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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.
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
Wisdom
Prudent
Often
Cautious
Persons
Circumstance
Even
Reference
Comprehensive
Cunning
Circumspection
Remarkable
Deficient
Circumstances
Sighted
More quotes by Richard Whately
Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
Richard Whately
Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,--the every-day life of each particular time and country.
Richard Whately
Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
Richard Whately
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
Richard Whately
The heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none. The very pretension to truth, the very demand of faith, were characteristic distinctions of Christianity.
Richard Whately
Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.
Richard Whately
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
Richard Whately
Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.
Richard Whately
It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
