"Sophism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in general, but about the unknown, and things that are dogmatically investigated, and that we say what appears to us, and that we do not express ourselves decidedly about the nature of external objects. By this means I think that every sophism brought against the Sceptical formulae can be overturned. We have now 209 shown the character of Scepticism by examining its idea, its parts, its criterion and aim, and also the Tropes of [Greek: epoche], and by treating of the Sceptical formulae. We think it therefore ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... law of all thinking beings,—it must seek to found its depraved way of acting on something like principles. Although Richard is thoroughly acquainted with the blackness of his mind and his hellish mission, he yet endeavours to justify this to himself by a sophism: the happiness of being beloved is denied to him; what then remains to him but the happiness of ruling? All that stands in the way of this must be removed. This envy of the enjoyment of love is so much the more natural in Richard, as his ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... lurking forest friend from his advantage; and on closer colloquy, if this friend should turn restive, then the 'Tuscan artist's tube,' contrived of course a double debt to pay, will suddenly reveal another sort of tube, insinuating an argument sufficient for the refutation of any sophism whatever. This is the best compromise which we can put forward with the present dilemma in Greece, where it seems that to be armed or to be unarmed is almost equally perilous. But our secret opinion is, that in ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... power of the State to regulate the happiness of humanity as it does the march of an army, and with an entirely mathematical precision? This is an evil tendency, a delusion which the Academy cannot oppose too strongly, because it is not only a chimera, but a dangerous sophism. Let us respect good and honest intentions; but let us not fear to say that to publish a book upon the ORGANIZATION OF LABOR is to rewrite for the fiftieth time a treatise upon the quadrature of the circle or the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... because he could not bear the idea of returning to Geneva, and he saw no other way out of his present destitute condition. "I could not dissemble from myself that the holy deed I was about to do, was at the bottom the action of a bandit." "The sophism which destroyed me," he says in one of those eloquent pieces of moralising, which bring ignoble action into a relief that exaggerates our condemnation, "is that of most men, who complain of lack of strength when it is already too late for them ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... study brilliancies of speech to wrap their net around those susceptible hearts whose habit is too naive by nature to wear the leaden covering of custom. You win approaches by artful counterfeit of earnestness, and dash away any naivete of confidence with some brave sophism of the world. A doubt or a distrust piques your pride, and makes attentions wear a humility that wins anew. An indifference piques you more, and throws into your art a counter-indifference,—lit up by bold flashes of ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... royal hypothesis of stark imposture, and no enthusiasm, was the clue which the Lords Commissioners, with Bacon at their head, had obsequiously borrowed to hale Ralegh to the scaffold. It was the strange sophism out of which Bacon again was set to compose a sedative ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Italy, and has met with warm admirers in England and Germany. Franchi's profession of faith reduces itself to these very simple terms:—"The world is what it is, and it is because it is; any other reason whatever of its essence and of its existence can be nothing but a sophism or an illusion."[84] All inquiry into the origin of things is a pure chimera, and we must therefore limit ourselves to the experience of the present life, and look for nothing beyond it. The author treats with sufficient disdain ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... as a proof of that other intention. But though this form of indictment and trial was very frequent, and many criminals had received sentence upon it, it was still considered as somewhat irregular, and was plainly confounding by a sophism two species of treason, which the statute had accurately distinguished. What made this refinement still more exceptionable, was, that a law had passed soon after the restoration, in which the consulting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... them, are not recorded, because the official authorities prevent 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 be recorded in any ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... selected elements of that motion; but at the same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the tortoise, the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Milner's sophism is glaring: but why should Dr. Milner be wiser than St. Augustine, one of his teachers? I am tempted to let out the true derivation of the word Catholic, as exclusively applied to the Church of Rome. All can find it who have access to the Rituale of Bonaventura Piscator[51] ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... amounted, in fact, to a negation of its claim to divine institution; and at the time when he produced it, early in 1519, he had come to reject not only the excesses of Tetzel, but the entire scheme of indulgences. Although he held to the Papacy only by an ingenious sophism, beyond the Pope there was the Council; and he might still deem himself a Catholic after the manner of Gerson and the Gallican divines of Constance, who depreciated Rome. That was possible, if nothing in the sequence of his views came into collision with any decree ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... 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
... of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... a sophism in legislation is not a mere abstraction; it must speedily bear fruit in material results of the most disastrous nature, and I implore your honorable committee, in behalf of our common country, not to open a Pandora's box by way ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... expect to scale the fortresses of knowledge by leaps and not by ladders, and who count on success in such perilous gymnastics, not by the discipline of the athlete, but by the dissipation of the idler. Indolence, indeed, is never at a loss for a smooth lie or delicious sophism to justify inaction, and, in our day, has rationalized it into a philosophy of the mind, and idealized it into a school of poetry, and organized it into a "hospital of incapables." It promises you the still ecstasy of a divine repose, while it lures you surely down into the vacant dulness of inglorious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... the title of duke ranks all others, even that of prince; though, in heraldic theory, free of all sophism, titles signify nothing; there is absolute equality among gentlemen. This fine equality was formerly maintained by the House of France itself; and in our day it is so still, at least, nominally; ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... reasons:—"He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son: but the Church of Rome never denied either the Father or the Son: therefore the church of Rome cannot be the Antichrist intended by St. John." Now, in this argument, which seems to be so clear and conclusive, there is a latent sophism, an assumption contrary to the Scriptures. The false assumption is, that the word denieth is univocal; that is, that it has in the Bible, and on this doctrinal point in particular, only one sense; whereas ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... eyes an instant. I know you think me reckless and lawless: now is not that true? You doubt whether, if a lady gave me her hand I should hold to it in perfect faith. Or, perhaps not that: but you do suspect I should be capable of every sophism under the sun to persuade a woman to break her faith, if it suited me: supposing some passion to be at work. Men who are open to passion have to be taught reflection before they distinguish between the woman they should sue for love because she would be their best mate, and the woman who has ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he violates its mandates. The child of civilization, on the contrary, the man of refinement, will not admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe his conscience he prefers to impose on it by a sophism. No doubt he wishes to obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his own esteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the superior authority that thwarts his inclination, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... The sophism which ruined me has had a similar affect on the greater part of mankind, who lament the want of resolution when the opportunity for exercising it is over. The practice of virtue is only difficult from our own negligence; ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of the Bible. Every Other Book Inspired? Connection of Bible History and Morality. Hume's Sophism. Miracles Being Violations of Laws of Nature, Contrary to an Unalterable Experience. No Testimony can Reach to the Supernatural. Records of Facts Not Judged by Your Notions. Rationalistic Explanation of the Miracles. Bible Account of Creation Unscientific. Antiquity of Man. The Anachronisms of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... but little place in this world of his creation. Yet, it is always felt in the truthfulness of his art; it is there, it surrounds the scene, it presses close upon it. It is made visible, tangible, in the struggles, in the contacts of the fine consciences, in their perplexities, in the sophism of their mistakes. For a fine conscience is naturally a virtuous one. What is natural about it is just its fineness, an abiding sense of the intangible, ever-present, right. It is most visible in their ultimate triumph, in their emergence from miracle, through ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... description of an individual, all of whose faculties are in their proper subordination and inter-dependence; and this it is assumed may be the prototype of the state as one great individual. But there is this sophism in it, that it is forgotten that the human faculties, indeed, are parts and not separate things; but that you could never get chiefs who were wholly reason, ministers who were wholly understanding, soldiers all wrath, labourers ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Dr. Channing, in his first argument, "that if any one may be held as property, then any other man may be so held." This sophism has been already sufficiently refuted. It proceeds on the supposition that if one man, however incapable of self-government, may be placed under the control of another, then all men may be placed under the control of others! It proceeds on the idea that all men should be placed in precisely ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... 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
... Not only did he suborn the Parliament of Milan to that end, but he induced the Emperor to confirm him in the title. To this the Emperor consented, seeking to mask the unscrupulous deed by a pitiful sophism. He expounded that the throne of Milan should originally have been Lodovico's, and never Galeazzo Maria's (Gian Galeazzo's father), because the latter was born before Francesco Sforza had become Duke of Milan, whereas Lodovico was born ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite divisibility which belongs to value, as ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... sorites[90] of Themistocles—"My son commands his mother; his mother commands me; I command the Athenians; the Athenians command Greece; Greece commands Europe; Europe commands the whole earth; therefore my son commands the whole earth"—the sophism depends upon the inaccurate use of the commands, which is employed in different senses in the different propositions. This errour was without difficulty detected by S—— at ten years old; and we make no doubt ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... as everybody knows who is interested in philosophical curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the human mind,—the favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block of science, the advocate of crime. The syllogism has produced all the evils which the fabulist so eloquently condemned, and has done nothing good or useful: it is as devoid of truth ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... wording of the Sophism before noticed. The demand made is, that the foreign article should be taxed, in order to neutralize the effects of the internal tax, which weighs down domestic produce. It is still then but the question of equalizing the facilities of production. We have but ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... so 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 ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... secured. The divines of 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 of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Hoste said, "Ye ride as still and coy, as doth a maid That were new spoused, sitting at the board: This day I heard not of your tongue a word. I trow ye study about some sophime:* *sophism But Solomon saith, every thing hath time. For Godde's sake, be of *better cheer,* *livelier mien* It is no time for to study here. Tell us some merry tale, by your fay;* *faith For what man that is entered in a play, He needes must unto that play assent. But preache not, as friars do in ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... society, and, in destroying them, society merely takes back the life she has imparted to them." "They are simply instruments fabricated by the law.[2253] What does the workman do when the tool he works with no longer suits him? He breaks or alters it."—This primary sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Since corporate bodies are abolished they no longer exist, and since they no longer exist, they cannot again ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... [Footnote d: A strange sophism has been made on this head in France. When a suit arises between the government and a private person, it is not to be tried before an ordinary judge—in order, they say, not to mix the administrative and the judicial powers; as if it were not to mix those powers, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... "Since sophism came in, which was with Monsieur Cain, when he asked, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' It was ingenious that reply; creditable to a beginner, without social advantages. 'An assassin!' Take the word boldly by the beard, and look at it. What is ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida |
