Quote

There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.

Richard Whately

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Whately
Age: 76 †
Born: 1787
Born: February 1
Died: 1863
Died: October 8
Economist
Philosopher
Priest
Theologian
London
England
True
Truth
Right
Believe
Believing
Unless
Faith

More quotes by Richard Whately

Image
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
Richard Whately
Image
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.
Richard Whately
Image
When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
Richard Whately
Image
The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.
Richard Whately
Image
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
Image
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