Richard Whately: System

Richard Whately was English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian. Explore interesting quotes on system.

Richard Whately: 20 quotes0 likes

“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

Introduction, p. 17
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

“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

Introduction, p. 19
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

“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

Introduction, p. 13
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)