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An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads.
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
Leads
Instinct
Blind
Mode
Independent
Agent
Action
Tendency
Ends
Consideration
Part
Tendencies
Agents
More quotes by Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
Richard Whately
All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
Richard Whately
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.
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
Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
Richard Whately
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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
The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
Richard Whately
It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
Richard Whately
Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.
Richard Whately
Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
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
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
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.
Richard Whately
All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
Richard Whately
When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Richard Whately
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
Richard Whately