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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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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.
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
Richard Whately
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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.
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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It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
Richard Whately
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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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He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
Richard Whately
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Ethical maxims are bandied about as a sort of current coin of discourse, and, being never melted down for use, those that are of base metal are never detected.
Richard Whately
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There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.
Richard Whately
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Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
Richard Whately
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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.
Richard Whately
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It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe to God for any blessing, is, that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.
Richard Whately
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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.
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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Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
Richard Whately
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Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately