Richard Whately
Richard Whately
Richard Whatelywas an English rhetorician, logician, economist, academic and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics, a flamboyant character, and one of the first reviewers to recognise the talents of Jane Austen...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 February 1787
mistake doubt may
Misgive that you may not mistake.
philosophy duty
knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy.
medicine knowing wholesomeness
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.
envy feelings looks
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.
wise dog moon
When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.
fall errors facts
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.
sacrifice being-true expediency
Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.
class fables may
A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables.
men safety quiet
Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety.
ingredients poison may
Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.
light air dry
Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.
circles magic stories
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.
reading character may
Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.
evil necessary-evil sometimes
Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.