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
wise ignorance men
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.
men mind never-change
A man will never change his mind if he have no mind to change.
views different definitions
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.
distance men wheat
Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.
character needs may
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.
reality shadow substance
Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.
men pearls fetch
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.
men long leaving
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.
religious men vanity
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.
truth believe
There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.
want relief increase
The relief that is afforded to mere want, as want, tends to increase that want.
wish would-be pleasure
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
women reeds tempest
Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.
regret years snow
It is folly to shiver over last year's snow.