Richard Whately quotes

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it. (Richard Whately)
It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
Richard Whately
Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
Richard Whately
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
Richard Whately
No one complains of the rules of Grammar as fettering Language; because it is understood that correct use is not founded on Grammar, but Grammar on correct use. A just system of Logic or of Rhetoric is analogous, in this respect, to Grammar..
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill.
Richard Whately
He that is not aware of his ignorance, will be only misled by his knowledge.
Richard Whately
Weak arguments are often thrust before my path but although they are most insubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword.
Richard Whately
The easiest and most popular way of practically refuting... any Fallacy is, by bringing forward a parallel case, where it leads to a manifest absurdity. A metaphysical objection may still be urged against many cases in which we thus reason from calculation of chances; an objection not likely indeed practically to influence any one, but which may afford the Sophist a triumph over those who are unable to find a solution. (Richard Whately)
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
Richard Whately
In the present day, however, the province of Rhetoric, in the widest acceptation that would reckoned admissible, comprehends all "Composition in Prose;" in the narrowest sense, it would be limited to "Persuasive Speaking."
Richard Whately
Cicero is hardly to be reckoned ... for he delighted so much more in the practice, than in the theory, of his art, that he is perpetualy drawn off from the rigid philosophical analysis of its principles, into discursive declamations, always eloquent indeed, and often highly interesting, but adverse to regularity of system, and frequently as unsatisfactory to the practical student as to the Philosopher.
Richard Whately
Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Richard Whately
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
Richard Whately
A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.
Richard Whately
Honesty is the best policy, but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man.
Richard Whately
Happiness is no laughing matter.
Richard Whately
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
Richard Whately
To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another. (Richard Whately)
Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.
Richard Whately
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.
Richard Whately
Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
Richard Whately
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Richard Whately