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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.

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
Men
Anarchy
Extreme
Licentious
Extremes
Proportionately
Opposite
Wearied
Opposites
Heartily
Embrace
Rigorous
Become
Eagerness
Great
Despotism

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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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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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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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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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To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.
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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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Better too much form than too little.
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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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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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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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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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Happiness is no laughing matter.
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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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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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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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