Richard Whately was an English rhetorician, logician, economist, academic and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics, a flamboyant character, and one of the first reviewers to recognise the talents of Jane Austen.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Richard Whately
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Woman
Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients, may be swallowed unperceived.
—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
Tradition, as held by the Romanists, is subordinate to Scripture and dependent on it, about as some parasite plants are on the tree that supports them. The former cling to the latter, and rest upon it; then gradually overspread it with their own foliage, till, by little and little, they weaken, and then smother it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Tradition
Fancy, when once brought into religion, knows not where to stop.—it is like one of those fiends in old stories which any one could raise, but which, when raised, could never be kept within the magic circle.
—Richard Whately
Those who get through the world without enemies are commonly of three classes: the supple, the adroit, the phlegmatic. The leaden rule surmounts obstacles by yielding to them; the oiled wheel escapes friction; the cotton sack escapes damage by its impenetrable elasticity.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Enemies
Eloquence is relative.—One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition, than on the wholesomeness of a medicine without knowing for whom it is intended.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Eloquence
It is seldom that a man labors well in his minor department unless he over-rates it.—It is lucky for us that the bee does not look upon the honeycomb in the same light we do.
—Richard Whately
Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel, but cruel because it is wrong.
—Richard Whately
He only is exempt from failures who makes no effort.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Failures, Mistakes, Failure
Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Loss, Losing, Morning, Losers
It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter, it is deceptive.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Wisdom
The larger the income, the harder it is to live within it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Riches
Misgive, that you may not mistake.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Doubt
Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Honesty
Those who delight in the study of human nature, may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of it by the perusal of the best selected fictions.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Fiction
Weak arguments are often thrust b fore my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Argument
The word knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things, viz., truth, proof, and conviction.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Knowledge
As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, “What is truth?”
—Richard Whately
Topics: Truth, Beliefs
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
Topics: Communication
The dangers of knowledge are not to be compared with the dangers of ignorance. Man is more likely to miss his way in darkness than in twilight; in twilight than in full sun.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Knowledge
Many a meandering discourse one hears, in which the preacher aims at nothing, and—hits it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Preaching
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor’s.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Service, Helping, Selfishness
That is, in a great degree, true of all men, which was said of the Athenians, that they were like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Public, Men
The judgment is like a pair of scales, and evidences like the weights; but the will holds the balances in its hand; and even a slight jerk will be sufficient, in many cases, to make the lighter scale appear the heavier.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Judgment
All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar, with which men think to buttress up an edifice, always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
—Richard Whately
The liberality of some men is but indifference clad in the garb of candor.
—Richard Whately
The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind; a narrow-minded man has it not, for to him they are great things.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Trifles
The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Ancestry
He that is not open to conviction, is not qualified for discussion.
—Richard Whately
I will undertake to explain to any one the final condemnation of the wicked, if he will explain to me the existence of the wicked—if he will explain why God does not cause all those to die in the cradle of whom he foresees that, when they grow up, they will lead a sinful life.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Wickedness
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Argument, Arguments
A little learning is a dangerous thing, and yet it is what all must attain before they can arrive at great learning; it is the utmost acquisition of those who know the most in comparison of what they do not know.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Learning
Ten thousand of the greatest faults in our neighbors are of less consequence to us than one of the smallest in ourselves.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Faults
Vices and frailties correct each other, like acids and alkalies. If each vicious man had but one vice, I do not know how the world could go on.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Vice
Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself?. Your looking-glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Self-Control
Too much attention cannot be bestowed on that important, yet much neglected branch of learning, the knowledge of man’s ignorance.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Ignorance
Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or than a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Reason
It is never worth while to suggest doubts in order to show how cleverly we can answer them.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Doubt
Some men’s reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Reputation
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