Top 121 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Whately
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English writer Richard Whately.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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?'
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
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.
To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.
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.
There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.
It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed; we see the most indistinctly the objects which are close around us.
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of truth.
A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.
Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.
Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
Happiness is no laughing matter.
Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say.
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.
It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price.
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.
Some persons resemble certain trees, such as the nut, which flowers in February and ripens its fruit in September; or the juniper and the arbutus; which take a whole year or more to perfect their fruit; and others, the cherry, which takes between two an three months.
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.
Misgive that you may not mistake.
The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.
He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.
Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong.
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.
Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.
He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
A man will never change his mind if he have no mind to change.
In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.
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 power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.
Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.
Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
Habits are formed, not at one stroke, but gradually and insensibly; so that, unless vigilant care be employed, a great change may come over the character without our being conscious of any.
When a man says he wants to work, what he means is that he wants wages.
An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads.
Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.
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.
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
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.
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.
To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.
It is a remarkable circumstance in reference to cunning persons that they are often deficient not only in comprehensive, far-sighted wisdom, but even in prudent, cautious circumspection.
It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.
Good manners are a part of good morals.
It is folly to shiver over last year's snow.
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