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

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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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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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Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all.
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Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.
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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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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
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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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The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
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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 more secure we feel against our liability to any error to which, in fact, we are liable, the greater must be our danger of falling into it.
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Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
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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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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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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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As the telescope is not a substitute for, but an aid to, our sight, so revelation is not designed to supersede the use of reason, but to supply its deficiencies.
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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.
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