Richard Whately Quotes

To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.

Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.

Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.

Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd.

As there are dim-sighted people who live in a sort of perpetual twilight, so there are some who, having neither much clearness of head nor a very elevated tone of morality, are perpetually haunted by suspicions of everybody and everything.

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.

Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety.

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.

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.

Happiness is no laughing matter.

As the telescope is not a substitute for, but an aid to, our sight, so revelation is not designed to supersede the use of reason, but to supply its deficiencies.

We may print, but not stereotype, our opinions.

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.

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?'

Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.

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.

The censure of frequent and long parentheses has led writers into the preposterous expedient of leaving out the marks by which they are indicated. It is no cure to a lame man to take away his crutches.

Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.

To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.

It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.

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.

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.

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.

A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.

Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.

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.

The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.

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.

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 that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.

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.

Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.

He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.

The depreciation of Christianity by indifference is a more insidious and less curable evil than infidelity itself.

It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.

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.

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.

If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.