Richard Whately quotes

Richard Whately was an English logician, theologian, and Archbishop of Dublin. Known for his influential works in logic, rhetoric, and economics, he played a key role in education reform. He contributed significantly to public debates and intellectual life in 19th-century Britain and Ireland. Here are 35 of his quotes:

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

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

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