Richard Whately
Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.Collection: Morning
A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.Collection: Money
It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.Collection: Wisdom
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.Collection: Good
Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.Collection: Men
Happiness is no laughing matter.Collection: Happiness
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.
In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed; we see the most indistinctly the objects which are close around us.
Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say.
Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
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.
To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.
All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of truth.
Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
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.
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.
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?'
To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.
It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.Collection: Truth
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.Collection: Food
The power of duly appreciating little things belongs to a great mind.Collection: Gratitude
To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.Collection: Science
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.Collection: Faith
A man will never change his mind if he have no mind to change.Collection: Change
As the telescope is not a substitute for, but an aid to, our sight, so revelation is not designed to supersede the use of reason, but to supply its deficiencies.Collection: Bible
It is folly to shiver over last year's snow.Collection: Regret
In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.Collection: Law
Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong.Collection: Persecution
The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.Collection: Style
Good manners are a part of good morals.Collection: Good Man
Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.Collection: Men
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.Collection: Wish
Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice; but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all.Collection: Block
Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars; just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,--the every-day life of each particular time and country.Collection: Country
It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,--a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.Collection: Annoyed
All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.Collection: Gambling
Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.Collection: Reading
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.Collection: Circles
The word of knowledge, strictly employed, implies three things: truth, proof, and conviction.Collection: Understanding
Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety.Collection: Men
A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables.Collection: Class
Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.Collection: Sacrifice
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.Collection: Envy
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.Collection: Medicine