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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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Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
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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.
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There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.
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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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When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.
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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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It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
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The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
Richard Whately
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The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless.
Richard Whately
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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
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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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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
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Better too much form than too little.
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Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.
Richard Whately
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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
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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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All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
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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