Richard Whately Quotes
-
As a science, logic institutes an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning, and investigating the principles on which argumentation is conducted; as an art, it furnishes such rules as may be derived from those principles, for guarding against erroneous deductions.
→ -
He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
→ -
Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.
→ -
Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.
→ -
Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong.
→ -
Women never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the fire from the top.
→ -
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
→ -
Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
→ -
Eloquence is relative. One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition than the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing for whom it is intended.
→ -
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.
→ -
There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.
→ -
Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety.
→ -
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.
→ -
When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.
→ -
Not in books only, nor yet in oral discourse, but often also in words there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up, from which lessons of infinite worth may be derived.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.
→ -
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.
→ -
Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.
→ -
Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
→ -
He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
→ -
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
→ -
It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.
→ -
Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
→ -
It is folly to shiver over last year's snow.
→ -
As an exercise of the reasoning faculties, pure mathematics is an admirable exercise, because it consists of reasoning alone and does not encumber the student with any exercise of judgment.
→ -
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.
→ -
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 unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive.
→ -
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.
→
Related Authors
-
John Henry Newman Priest -
John Keble Poet -
Saint Basil Saint -
Edmund Burke Statesman -
Joseph Butler Philosopher -
David Hume Philosopher -
Emanuel Swedenborg Scientist -
Athanasius of Alexandria Saint -
Hugh Blair Author -
Marcus Tullius Cicero Philosopher -
-
John Locke Philosopher -
William Stanley Jevons Economist -
Socrates Philosopher -
Kevin Whately Actor -
John Ramsay McCulloch Economist -
Origen Scholar -
Plato Philosopher -
William Whewell Polymath -
Nassau William Senior Economist