"Vicious circle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sufficient for the modifications of our ideas. The method of defining every term and constantly substituting the definition for the term defined looks well, but it is impracticable. For how can we escape from our vicious circle? Definitions would be all very well if we did not use words in the making of them. In spite of this I am convinced that even in our poor language we can make our meaning clear, not by always using words in ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... drastic treatment, and in view of the hectic condition of the Stock Exchange and the "vicious circle" round which industrialism is now unhappily revolving I cannot but think that the temporary seclusion of the Ministry in a psychopathic ward might be fraught with economic consequences of the utmost importance. Even if they were only able to reduce ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... ages, to repair the mischief inflicted by enemies," that accounts for "the fecundity of the codfish and other creatures. The more prolific it becomes, the more enemies it can feed; and the more they multiply, the more prolific it grows." A vicious circle indeed! Even "earthquakes, storms, droughts, deluges," are explained as due to a certain want of ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... were so European already," returned the gentleman, "that a European landing among us would think he had got back to his starting-point in a sort of vicious circle. I am myself so thoroughly Europeanized in all my feelings and instincts that, do you know, Mrs. Makely, if I may ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... vicious circle the advocates of a verbal inspiration of infallibility are necessarily imprisoned whenever they attempt to argue from the words of Scripture. They contend that one must believe their theory in order to be sure that any passage is absolutely true, and then they quote passages to prove their ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... necessary to the full appreciation of their meaning. That you must understand the Scriptures in order to have faith, and have faith in order to understand the Scriptures, is indeed, a circle; but it is not a vicious circle. As you approach from without, you may perceive that the Bible is the word of God, and that the Christ whom it reveals is the Saviour of sinners; standing now on your new position, and recognising your Instructor as also your Redeemer, you will discover in his word ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... development, and to adapt the latter accordingly. The difference between man and the brute is that man may be called a thinking animal, the brute, however, is no thinking man. It is this that a large portion of our Darwinians can not, in their one-sidedness, understand. Hence the vicious circle ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... on its usefulness to satisfy yourself of its being virtuous; but, on the contrary, you rely on its virtuousness, previously ascertained, in order to satisfy yourself of its usefulness. And thus the whole practical value of this test disappears, though in that view it was first introduced; and a vicious circle arises in the argument; as you must have ascertained the virtuousness of an act, in order to apply the test of its being virtuous. But, secondly, it now comes out that Paley was answering a very different question from ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... public will not purchase it. The public might very well retort that they get precious little chance to listen to it, since royalty ballads come first: nor to come in contact with it, for the ordinary dealer does not stock it. There, then, is the vicious circle quite complete. But the poets are not paralysed, they are merely inarticulate by reason of this commercialisation of Art. At the best of times the average lyric author has a difficult and somewhat heart-breaking task to dispose of his wares, and we need not further harrow his artistic soul ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... imitative faculty was gradually undermined by the progress of the mechanical idea. With each succeeding generation of master and pupil, the mechanical idea became more firmly established. Something akin to a vicious circle was involved in this progress. As attention was paid in practical instruction to the mechanical operations of the voice, so the voice's instinctive power of imitation was curtailed by throat stiffness. This served to make more pressing the ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... New Zealand] that men cannot get rich by swopping knives. Nevertheless nature does seem to go upon this principle. Everybody does eat everybody up. Man eats birds, birds eat worms and worms eat man again. It is a vicious circle, yet, somehow or other, there is an increment. I begin to doubt the principle ex nihilo ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler |
