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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.

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
True
Ever
Nothing
Right
Expedient
Great
Expediency
Good
Sacrifice
Never
Since
Would
Less

More quotes by Richard Whately

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The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive.
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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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All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
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Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
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One way in which fools succeed where wise men fail is that through ignorance of the danger they sometimes go coolly about a hazardous business.
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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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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.
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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
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Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
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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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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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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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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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He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
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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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Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
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Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving.
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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
Richard Whately