Richard Whately Quotes

To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.

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

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

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for 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.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.

All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.

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

A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.

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

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?'

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.

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

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

Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.

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.

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

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.

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.

Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.

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.

He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.

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.

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.

The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.

Party spirit enlists a man's virtues in the cause of his vices.

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.

Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong.

In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

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

Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out for one pretext after another to justify his hostility.

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.

Happiness is no laughing matter.

Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.

It is an awful, an appalling thought, that we may be, this moment and every moment, in the presence of malignant spirits.

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

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

Better too much form than too little.

Trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have once become bewildered, but to repeated trials at intervals.

The relief that is afforded to mere want, as want, tends to increase that want.

All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.

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

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.

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.

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

The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.