Those who are ambitious of originality, and aim at it, are necessarily led by others, since they seek to be different from them.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Originality
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
That is suitable to a man, in point of ornamental expense, not which he can afford to have, but which he can afford to lose.
—Richard Whately
All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of others, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Gambling
If our religion is not true, we are bound to change it; if it is true, we are bound to propagate it.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Religion
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
Some men’s reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Reputation
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
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
Topics: Superstition
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
He that is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Ignorance
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
Most precepts that are given are so general that they cannot be applied, except by an exercise of as much discretion as would be sufficient to frame them.
—Richard Whately
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Woman
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
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
Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the test of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Applause
It is never worth while to suggest doubts in order to show how cleverly we can answer them.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Doubt
Misgive, that you may not mistake.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Doubt
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 from transgression.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Law
Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
—Richard Whately
Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Right
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
Topics: Manners
Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.
—Richard Whately
Historians give us the extraordinary events, and omit just what we want, the everyday life of each particular time and country.
—Richard Whately
Topics: History
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
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
The tendency of party-spirit has ever been to disguise, and propagate, and support error.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Party
The over-formal often impede, and sometimes frustrate business by a dilatory, tedious, circuitous, and fussy way of conducting the simplest transactions. They have been compared to a dog which cannot lie down till he has made three circuits round the spot.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Manners
He only is exempt from failures who makes no effort.
—Richard Whately
Topics: Failures, Mistakes, Failure
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Stuart Mill English Philosopher, Economist
- Herbert Spencer English Polymath
- Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
- Jeremy Bentham British Philosopher, Economist
- John Maynard Keynes English Economist
- William of Ockham English Philosopher, Polemicist
- Duke Ellington American Musician
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
- Maria Mitchell American Astronomer
- Benjamin Whichcote British Religious Figure
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