"Self-contradiction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crypto-Bauddhas who take shelter under a pretended Vedic theory.—To maintain, as the Yogakaras do, that the general rule of idea and thing presenting themselves together proves the non-difference of the thing from the idea, implies a self-contradiction; for 'going together' can only be where there are different things. To hold that it is a general rule that of the idea—the essential nature of which is to make the thing to which it refers capable of entering ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... solar motion is "full of self-contradiction, which "the astronomers" simply overlooked, but which they dare not now deny after ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the proof suddenly brought to light of his having clandestinely left the plate of his murdered victim in a particular party's safe keeping, at that moment the advocate (though secretly prostrated by this overwhelming discovery) struggled vainly to fix upon the honourable witness a foul stigma of self-contradiction and perjury for the single purpose of turning loose a savage murderer upon society. If this were not more than justice, then assuredly in all times past the prisoner had far less. Now, precisely the difference between the advocacy of the judge, and the advocacy of ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... brother Horatio added, that the number of troops then proposed was absolutely necessary to support his majesty's government, and would be necessary as long as the nation enjoyed the happiness of having the present illustrious family on the throne. The futility, the self-contradiction, and the ridiculous absurdity of these suggestions, were properly exposed; nevertheless, the army was voted without any reduction. Sir Wilfred Lawson having made a motion for an address to the king, to know what satisfaction had been ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... difficult to describe, since the words which must be used convey such different ideas to different persons. Thus, to say that he had the religious temperament, though he was skeptical as to all the divine and supernatural dogmas of the religions of mankind, will seem to many a self-contradiction, while to others it is entirely intelligible. In his boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence which was slow in disappearing. When yet a mere child he suggested to his father the convenience of saying grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as the mercantile phrase ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... and profoundly wicked, Rudolph Musgrave considered; and so, he always gravely estimated this-or-that acquaintance, after death, to be "better off, poor fellow"—as the colonel phrased it, with a tinge of self-contradiction—even if he actually refrained in fancy from endowing the deceased with aureate harps and crowns and footgear. In fine, death cowed the colonel's thoughts; beyond the grave they did not care to venture, and when confronted with ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... criticism. In attempting to describe what we actually know in the abstract logical terms which are the only means of intercommunication that human beings possess, Bergson is driven into perpetual self-contradiction, indeed, paradoxical though it may sound, unless he contradicted himself his description could not be a true one. It is easier for the ordinary reader to pass over the self contradictions, hardly even being aware of them, and grasp the underlying meaning: the trained logician is at once pulled ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen
... repudiation of "principles" of action, and a type of worker which proclaimed itself "Opportunist-Socialist." It was another instance of Socialism losing sight of itself, it was a process quite parallel at the other extreme with the self-contradiction of the Anarchist-Socialist. Socialism as distinguished from mere Liberalism, for example, is an organized plan for social reconstruction, while Liberalism relies upon certain vague "principles"; Socialism declares that good intentions and doing ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... glance at the representations of this subject in our former publications during the last quarter of a century, as we have frequently been charged, not indeed by the author of the Plea, but by superficial writers, with self-contradiction and misrepresentation. It would indeed have been in perfect unison with the habit of the best authors of Europe and America, to change our opinions as we extended our investigations, and freely to profess such change. Nor should we feel ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... plundering raids on the wealthiest portions of the country. It was a plan that in default of a really effective occupation of the whole country, especially of some occupation of Western Numidia, implied a certain amount of self-contradiction and inconsistency. The plunder of the land was intended to secure the end which Metellus wished to avoid—a conflict with the king; and the mobility which he so much dreaded could find no fairer field for its exercise than the rapid marches across country which might secure ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... this method, Plato had not only exposed the insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere a posteriori generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some elements of knowledge which have not been ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... time before had Beauclerc been the first to laugh when one of his own paradoxes stared him in the face; but now he was more out of countenance than amused, and he looked seriously about for reasons to reconcile his seeming self-contradiction. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... principles here stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has not himself expressly insisted upon in some part or other of his various works.'[436] He only argues that Malthus's concessions are made at the cost of self-contradiction. Why then, it may be asked, should not Hazlitt take the position of an improver and harmoniser of the doctrine rather than of a fierce opponent? The answer has been already implied. He regards Malthus as an apologist for an unjust inequality. Malthus, he says, in classifying ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen |
