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The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.

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
Style
Firsts
First
Compositions
Requisite
Rhetoric
Composition

More quotes by Richard Whately

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A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.
Richard Whately
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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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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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Eloquence is relative. One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition than the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing for whom it is intended.
Richard Whately
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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
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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.
Richard Whately
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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.
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.
Richard Whately
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If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Richard Whately
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When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
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It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Richard Whately
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Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.
Richard Whately
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Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
Richard Whately
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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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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
Richard Whately