Richard Whately Quotes
An English logician, economist, and theologian who also served as Anglican Archbishop of Dublin.
(1787 - 1863)
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"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.
[Learning]
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"Honesty is the best policy"; but he who acts only on that principle is not an honest man. - No one is habitually guided by it in practice. - An honest man is always before it, and a knave is generally behind it.
[Honesty]
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A confident expectation that no argument will be adduced that will change our opinions is very different from a resolution that none ever shall. We may print but not stereotype our opinions.
[Opinion]
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A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
[Selfishness]
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A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.
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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.
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All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of others, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.
[Gambling]
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All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of truth.
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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?'
[Truth]
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As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
[Faith]
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Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
[Attention]
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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.
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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.
[Eloquence]
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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.
[Law]
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Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
[Truth]
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Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients, may be swallowed unperceived.
[Falsehood]
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Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.
[Falsehood]
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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.
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Half the truth will very often amount to absolute falsehood.
[Error]
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Happiness is no laughing matter.
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