"Sophism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that by these researches, we have eradicated the previous misconception, which cannot be revived or maintained except with the weapons of sophism, and by defying evidence and the very ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... Mrs. Porten, that, were I master of Greek and Latin, I must interpret to myself in English the thoughts of the original, and that such extemporary versions must be inferior to the elaborate translations of professed scholars; a silly sophism, which could not easily be confuted by a person ignorant of any other language than her own. From the ancient I leaped to the modern world: many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c., I devoured like so many novels; and I swallowed ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... It was only a sophism, or what the fencing-master calls a feint. I withdraw it therefore. But see how disputing can make even honest men unjust and ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... great inlet by which a color for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another, and by claiming a right to use what means he thinks proper in order to bring him to a sense of it. It is the ordinary and trite sophism of oppression. But there is not yet such a convenient ductility in the human understanding as to make us capable of being persuaded that men can possibly mean the ultimate good of the whole society by rendering miserable for a century together the greater part of it,—or that any one has such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... those which must be expressed in this way, it is possible that we might have considered the existence of a certain kind of contingency a self-evident truth, and treated the doctrine of philosophical necessity as a mere sophism. ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... be taught. But virtue is not taught, and therefore in this higher and ideal sense there is no virtue and no knowledge. The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general terms. He can only produce out of their armoury the sophism, 'that you can neither enquire into what you know nor into what you do not know;' to which Socrates replies by his ...
— Meno • Plato
... Massachusetts, in opposition to this doctrine, contended that they did not persecute men for conscience, but corrected them for sinning against conscience; and so they did not persecute, but punish heretics. This unintelligible sophism not convincing Williams, he was, for this, and for his other heresies, banished by the magistrates, as a disturber of the peace of the church, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... often believe ourselves awake, was well answered by his plain neighbour, 'Ah, but when awake do we ever believe ourselves asleep?'—Things identical must be convertible. The preceding passage seems to rest on a similar sophism. For the question is not, whether there may not occur in prose an order of words, which would be equally proper in a poem; nor whether there are not beautiful lines and sentences of frequent occurrence ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... she suffered whole-sale imposition. From this we must conclude that it does not do to be humane and generous to our fellow-men—when they are tramps. Mr. O'Neil is right, and that this is no sophism it is the intention of this article, ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... invites it, courts the point of the Ithuriel-spear, whose touch can but reveal more clearly the grace and grandeur of her angelic proportions. The advocates of Slavery have taken refuge in the last covert of desperate sophism, and affirm that their institution is of Divine ordination, that its bases are laid in the nature of man. Is anything, then, of God's contriving endangered by inquiry? Was it the system of the universe, or the monks, that trembled at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... retraction of error. The truly objective manner in which he dealt with this matter appears from his Strictures on the Testament of Dr. Major (Censura de Testamento D. Majoris). Here we read, in substance: In his Testament Major covers his error with the same sophism which he employed in his former writings. For he says that he ascribes the entire efficient cause, merit, and price of our justification and salvation to Christ alone, and therefore excludes and removes all our works and virtues. This he has set forth more fully ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... the hand and drew him to the bed, and, putting him to sit there, he tried to soothe and comfort him. He was terrified at first by the sound of his own voice, but the sophism that had served to bring him, served to support him also, and he told himself it could be no breach of the rule of silence to speak to one who was not there. The delirium of the lay brother spent itself at length, and he ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... may be the result of sloth. "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep." Prov. 19:15. Spiritual idleness soon results in spiritual dryness. That sophism of Satan's, "No time for prayer," is very dangerous. Any neglect of spiritual devotion must result in lukewarmness. Oh, how unreasonable is man and how easily the desires of the flesh deceive! If you neglected to water your garden, you would not ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... to erect a barrier, and to plead against extending the innovation to these two classes. Many-sidedness was almost essential as a pretext for the Innovators. "Distinction of sides is intended by Nature to imply distinction of colours"—such was the sophism which in those days flew from mouth to mouth, converting whole towns at a time to the new culture. But manifestly to our Priests and Women this adage did not apply. The latter had only one side, and therefore—plurally ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... likewise. There was a wild uproar, and one and all, conscious of their dignity and power, cast away personal prejudices in order to combine for their common rights. Thus, a noble impetuosity and a true word are sometimes sufficient to bring back the masses who have long been led astray by sophism. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... to demonstrate it. We merely add a single observation which appears to us of some importance. The writer who said: "Everything is true, and everything is false," announced a fact which the human intellect, naturally prone to sophism, interprets as it chooses, but it really seems as though human affairs have as many facets as there are minds that contemplate them. This fact may be detailed ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... dire a sophism, and to rescue from logical annihilation so many millions of fellow-creatures, how many wings of geese have been plundered! what oceans of ink have been benevolently drained! and how many capacious heads of learned historians have been addled and for ever confounded! I pause with reverential ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... a very singular subtilty, two sorts of observations of equal importance, the one external, the other internal; the last of which is exclusively destined for the study of intellectual phenomena. This is not the place to enter into the special discussion of this sophism. I will limit myself to indicate the principal consideration, which clearly proves that this pretended direct contemplation of the mind by itself, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... their publication; this is what happens to the secret acts of governments and the complaints of the lower classes. This silence, which proves nothing, greatly impresses unreflecting historians; it is the origin of the widespread sophism of the "good old times." No document relates any abuse of power by officials or any complaints made by peasants; therefore, everything was regular and nobody was suffering. Before we argue from silence we should ask: Might not this fact have failed to ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... politics analogous to that in philosophy or theology of denying all real distinction between creator and creature, God and the universe, which all the world knows is either pantheism or pure atheism—the supreme sophism. If we make governor and governed one and the same, we efface both terms; for there is no governor nor governed, if the will that governs is identically the will that is governed. To make the controller ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... But a punishment inflicted, not by a general rule, but by an arbitrary discretion, cannot serve the purpose of a warning. It is therefore useless; and useless pain ought not to be inflicted. This sophism has found its way into several books on penal legislation. It admits however of a very simple refutation. In the first place, punishments ex post facto are not altogether useless even as warnings. They are warnings to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Another sophism almost universally accepted needs to be shown. Man, it is said, has no interest in a future life if not conscious in it of the past. If, on exchange of worlds, man loses his memory, he virtually ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of talking nonsense. Yet such an assertion would not, as far as we can perceive, be more unreasonable than that which Mr Mill has here ventured to make. Without adducing one fact, without taking the trouble to perplex the question by one sophism, he placidly dogmatises away the interest of one half of the human race. If there be a word of truth in history, women have always been, and still are, over the greater part of the globe, humble companions, play things, captives, menials, beasts of burden. Except ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite divisibility which belongs to value, as it does ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... Fulvia came to Alexandria at this time, and lived in the same princely style with his father. Philotas the physician lived in his service, and one day at supper when Philotas silenced a tiresome talker with a foolish sophism the young Antony gave him as a reward the whole sideboard of plate. But in the middle of this gaiety and feasting Antony was recalled to Europe by letters which told him that his wife and brother had been driven ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... evidence. It is not in demonstrations as in probabilities, that difficulties can take place, and one argument counter-ballance another, and diminish its authority. A demonstration, if just, admits of no opposite difficulty; and if not just, it is a mere sophism, and consequently can never be a difficulty. It is either irresistible, or has no manner of force. To talk therefore of objections and replies, and ballancing of arguments in such a question as this, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume |
