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Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  Whately

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

Whately

Cultivate not only the cornfields of your mind, but the pleasure-grounds also.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.

Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Fancy, when once brought into religion, knows not where to stop.

Good manners are part of good morals.

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.

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

Knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy.

Many a meandering discourse one hears, in which the preacher aims at nothing, and—hits it.

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

Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; it is cruel because it is wrong.

Reason can no more influence the will and operate as a motive, than the eyes, which show a man his road, can enable him to move from place to place, or than a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.

Superstition is a misdirection of religious feeling.

The judgment is like a pair of scales, and evidences like the weights; but the will holds the balance in its hand; and even a slight jerk will be sufficient, in many cases, to make the lighter scale appear the heavier.

The man who is in a hurry to see the full effects of his own tillage must cultivate annuals, and not forest trees.

The tendency of party-spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.

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

To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; because the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.

Unless the people can be kept in total darkness, it is the wisest way for the advocates of truth to give them full light.

Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.