RICHARD WHATELY

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

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.

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

To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.

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

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.

Happiness is no laughing matter.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

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?'

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

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 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.

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

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.

There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.

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

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.

No community ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can be called civilization