"Hairsplitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do not for a moment believe that any physicist really believes this, or that any man accepts it as a common-sense doctrine—one which can be acted upon in daily life. It is mere philosophical sophistry and hairsplitting, and we must believe, as a matter of fact, that physical energy is really physical, and not ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... was enforced deprived her of the last vestige of dignity and self-assertion. She relapsed into the mental condition of a juvenile culprit undergoing correction. Now that she was caught, she no longer thought of her offense as venial. The grasp of her captor seemed to put an end to all possible hairsplitting on that point, and prove that it was nothing more nor less than stealing, and a sense of guilt left her without any moral support against her fright. She was only conscious of utter humiliation, and an abject desire to beg off on ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy |
