Quotes from Richard Whately

Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say.

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

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

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

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

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

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.

Happiness is no laughing matter.

It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.

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

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?'

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

It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

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

There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.

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

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

He only is exempt from failures who makes no effort.

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

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.

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.

Ethics and Logic should be the most generally studied, because all practise them whether they have studied them or not.