"Self-evident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the English walnut we have had them do the best by transplanting when the tree is about two years old, but it will more or less disturb the vigor of a tree to transplant it. That is self-evident; it needs some time to heal those wounds that are made both in the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... to withstand the pressure of a powerful expiratory blast, the theory of the vocal action therein embodied met with immediate acceptance. This idea is so plausible that it appeals to the thoughtful investigator as self-evident, and seems to call for no proof. The doctrine of breath-control was at once adopted, by the most influential vocal scientists, as 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
... have a glut of political prophets foretelling a crisis or a no-crisis within the only twenty-four hours left open to prophecy. Conceive the condition of the human mind if all propositions whatsoever were self-evident except one, which was to become self-evident at the close of a summer's day, but in the mean time might be the subject of question, of hypothesis, of debate. Art and philosophy, literature and science, would fasten like bees on that one proposition that had the honey ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... origin from which the normal as well as the inversion types developed, following restrictions in this or that direction. In the psychoanalytic sense the exclusive sexual interest of the man for the woman is also a problem requiring an explanation, and is not something that is self-evident and explainable on the basis of chemical attraction. The determination as to the definite sexual behavior does not occur until after puberty and is the result of a series of as yet not observable factors, some of which are of a constitutional, ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... your breast—to say nothing of a thousand ingenious forms of torture inflicted just because "He sees that it is best for you," after having led you to see otherwise—that you cannot trust a God like that must be more or less self-evident. If you are part of His Self-Expression He cannot practise futilities through your experience and personality. He must be kind with a common-sense kindness, loving with a common-sense love. Whatever explanation of our sufferings and failures ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... the retrocession of the Transvaal was a proper course, was it either wise or humane to prolong the war and crush the Boer resistance at the cost of much slaughter, merely in order to avenge defeats and vindicate a military superiority which the immensely greater forces of Britain made self-evident? A great country is strong enough to be magnanimous, and shows her greatness better by justice and lenity than by a sanguinary revenge. These moral arguments, which affect different minds differently, were reinforced ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... golden key wherewith to unlock the world of the universe, of the soul, of all nature. He is as convinced of the two absolute facts of God and Soul as Cardinal Newman in writing of "Two and two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator." Most fervently ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Dalrymple to assist him on Saturdays; but when his father became cashier of his bank, receiving an income of four thousand dollars a year, shortly after Frank had reached his fifteenth year, it was self-evident that Frank could no longer continue in ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... the main, as I said, the simple outcome of Jewish theism with its 'creation out of nothing,' and the really foolish and paradoxical denial of the doctrine of metempsychosis which is involved in that idea, a doctrine which is natural to a certain extent, self-evident, and, with the exception of the Jews, accepted by nearly the whole human race at all times.... Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... any obvious relation between Hahnemann's three cardinal doctrines appears to be self-evident upon inspection. But if, as is often true with his disciples, they prefer the authority of one of their own number, I will refer them to Dr. Trinks's paper on the present state of Homoeopathy in Europe, with which, of course, they are familiar, as his name is mentioned as one ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... self-evident from the text. 1. Bombast and mock-heroics. 2. Horse-play and slap-sticks. 3. Burlesque, farce and extravagance of situation and dialogue. a. True burlesque. b. True farce. c. Extravagances obviously unnatural and merely for ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... estimate, and thought I could pull you through by a slight majority. Now, it's different. While you may lose some votes from the 'near-silk stocking' class, yet for every vote so lost hundreds will rally to you. That all men are created equal is still a truth held to be self-evident. The spark of the spirit that prompted the Declaration of Independence is always ready to be fanned to a flame, and the Democrats have furnished us the fans in ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... doctrine of Reincarnation is not called upon to establish the proof of the existence of a "soul," as the idea of existence of the soul practically is universal, and, therefore, "axiomic"—that is, it is a truth that may be considered as an "axiom," or self-evident truth, worthy of being assumed as a principle, necessary to thought on the subject, a proposition which it is necessary to take for granted, an established principle of thought on the subject. Strictly ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... efficiency is attained by Mervin L. Lane, Insurance Service, New York, who prints on his letterhead, "Unnecessary terms of politeness as well as assurances of self-evident esteem are omitted ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... to be expected from petitioning after this? Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts) for depriving the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into other colonies, or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible from the ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... kingdoms" in plural number; but there will be one kingdom, that is, one government of our Lord, and his Christ. And this will be a true Republican government—to give explanations about which there is no room here, but we remark, that this great truth will become self-evident to those who comprehend this book. And we expect, that you, respected President Buchanan, will comprehend it and then you will take the spiritual weapons, which are comprehended in our message, for the conversion of monarchs into ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... with cheerful promptitude. "I agree with you down to the ground," he said, lighting a cigarette, and puffing away at it vigorously. "Outsiders ought not to back their luck on the Stock Exchange. That, I take it, is a self-evident proposition. But the point is, here, that you're not an outsider; and you don't back your luck, which alters the case, you'll admit, somewhat. You embark on speculations on my advice only, and I'm in a position to ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... I don't think that there is any necessity for an argument between you and me on this point. That you cannot marry Miss Clavering is so self-evident that it does not require to be discussed. If there were nothing else against it, neither of you have got a penny. I have not seen my daughter since I heard of this madness—hear me out if you please, sir—since ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created sober, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, such as Life, Grievances, and the Pursuit of Other People's Happiness. Whenever any form of amusement becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the Pan-Antis to abolish ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... dilemma, instead of justifying himself by reason or argument, had recourse to recrimination. In the paper which he sent me next day, he insisted in general that he had carefully perused the case (which you will perceive was a self-evident untruth); he said the theory it contained was idle; that he was sure it could not be written by a physician; that, with respect to the disorder, he was still of the same opinion; and adhered to his former prescription; but if I had any ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... self-evident than that one should choose a region, especially as regards soil and climate, which is adapted to the crop or crops to be raised, yet there are probably more failures due to a lack of crop adaptation than to any other cause that is not personal to the man himself. Not only do apples, for ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... geometric reasoning some propositions are necessarily taken for granted. These are called axioms, and are commonly regarded as self-evident. Yet their vital principle is not so much that of being self-evident as being, from the nature of the case, incapable of demonstration. Our edifice must have some support to rest upon, and we take these axioms as its foundation. One ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another—nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... of this proposition, or rather the proposition itself, is self-evident, and is also plain from the definition of desire. For the desire of living, acting, &C., blessedly or rightly, is (Def. of the Emotions, i.) the essence of man - that is (III:vii.), the endeavour made by everyone to preserve his own being. Therefore, no ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... is this overbearing part in the English constitution, needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions, is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... endeavored to establish freedom among men. If the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearts, "Benjamin Franklin is in hell, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many years." That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed or change it. I want to impress it upon your mind, because the thing I wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... was no such difficulty as I imagined. Her engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth could have no fault. That was the one principle at the centre of the universe. And the doubtful guilt or possible integrity of other people, appearances, self-evident facts, the testimony of her own senses,—even Hollingsworth's self-accusation, had he volunteered it,—would have weighed not the value of a mote of thistledown on the other side. So secure was she of his right, that she never thought of comparing it with another's wrong, but ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... abounding in a profusion of interesting letters, and extracts of letters, written by the hero himself, which have generously flowed in, from all quarters, to aid the biographer; he may surely, without the charge of presumption, these facts being self-evident on the slightest inspection, be allowed to assert, must necessarily be entitled to very ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... it, then I am sure Ireland, with her boasted Numbers, is in a bad way; as all her poor Popish Natives, or in other Words, three-fourths of her swarming Inhabitants, have neither Houses, Cloaths, Work, Food, or Fire. This is a dismal self-evident Truth, that demands the serious Consideration of every Irishman, that can think, or can learn to think. At the same Time, our Nobility and Gentry set their Lands excessively high, get their Rents paid to a Penny, have ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... annihilate itself, because the result would be that there would be no deposits. A practical law which I recognise as such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an identical proposition and, therefore, self-evident. Now, if I say that my will is subject to a practical law, I cannot adduce my inclination (e.g., in the present case my avarice) as a principle of determination fitted to be a universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... of the individual in that which is most peculiar and individual in him. Its claim is in its grace, its freedom and happiness, its lively interest, the variety of its gifts to civilisation; its weakness is self-evident, and was what made the unity of Greece impossible. [253] It is this centrifugal tendency which Plato is desirous to cure, by maintaining, over against it, the Dorian influence of a severe simplification everywhere, in society, in culture, in the very physical nature ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... to account for the reason why the lack of these characteristics is so much to the fore to-day, or to think of the remedy which shall reach and cure them. But that it is a presence in our midst is a self-evident fact. No one who has travelled much in France (to name only one other country), but is aware how vast is the gulf which divides the ways of living of our own labouring classes and of those which obtain across the water. There, thriftiness is the rule. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... who seek the reputation of wisdom by dint of never affording a glimpse of their capabilities, and impose upon the world by silent gravity; negative philosophers, who never commit themselves beyond the utterance of a self-evident proposition, or hazard their position by a feat of greater boldness than is to be found in the avowal of the safe truth which has been granted for a thousand years. There is a deception here, which ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... remark was so self-evident and incontrovertible that it elicited no reply, and the three friends rode on for a ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... inconvenient allusions to Lightmark and their altered relations, which he had at first nervously anticipated. Oswyn rarely mentioned the other painter's name, and accepted, without surprise or the faintest appearance of a desire for explanation, the self-evident fact of the breach between the two quondam allies; regarding it as in the natural course of events, and as an additional link in the chain of their intimacy. Indeed, Lightmark had long ceased to be a component ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the question of the vices, and regarding only the gain to moral power which comes of bodily exercise and physical conditioning, it should be self-evident that the process which builds the muscle must also train and alert the mind. How could it be otherwise? Every physical act must have as its origin a mental impulse, conscious or unconscious. Thus in training a man to master his muscles we also help him to master ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... help we have been able to discover the rights of man." As in mathematics, they have been deduced from one primordial statement only, which statement, similar to a first principle in mathematics, becomes a fact of daily experience, seen by all and therefore self-evident.—This school of thought is to endure throughout the Revolution, the Empire and even into the Restoration,[3243] together with the tragedy of which it is the sister, with the classic spirit their common parent, a primordial, sovereign power, as dangerous as it is useful, as destructive as it ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... during her transition state, or even now that she had reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would be stating a self-evident improbability. What young lass under seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her natural guardians? Who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or expect from girls at the most unformed ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... of storage battery street cars for city traffic are self-evident, so that I need not trouble you with further details in this respect, but I would beg those who take an interest in the progress of the electric locomotive to give this subject all the consideration ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice being that nothing has happened to it—nothing has occurred to keep the talk of it alive." The fundamental principles of such works, after having long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionable as self-evident propositions; yet no one, perhaps, at this day can rightly conceive the great merits of Locke's Treatises on "Education," and on "Toleration;" or the philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works of this high order, which first diffused ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... what is self-evident," answered Pyrrhus. "If we can conquer the Romans, there is no city, Greek or barbarian, that can resist us, and we shall gain possession of the whole of Italy, a country whose size, richness, and power no one knows better than yourself." Kineas then, after waiting for ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... cannot be said upon the importance of thorough thought and study of a selection previous to any effort toward expression. It is needless to explain that one cannot give what he does not possess; and it is equally self-evident that one gains by giving. Long and thoughtful quiescent concentration should precede the concentration of mind while speaking. The author's words are like a gold mine which must be searched by thorough ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... waste breath saying self-evident things? Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... metre is only a part of his too deliberate novelty as a poet. As Mr. Gosse has pointed out, with a self-evident truth which has apparently waited for him to say it, Donne's real position in regard to the poetry of his time was that of a realistic writer, who makes a clean sweep of tradition, and puts everything ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... common gas, the gas itself, owing to defectiveness of the burner, is projected into the air. Now, considering the deleterious nature of all illuminating gases, the reasons for perfect ventilation of rooms in which natural gas is used for heating and culinary purposes are self-evident, not alone as a protection against explosions, but for the health of the occupants of the house, remembering that a larger supply of oxygen is said to be necessary for the perfect combustion of natural ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... must be a new schoolhouse was a self-evident fact. It was built as promptly as possible. The admirable building, with all its modern aids and appurtenances, was not placed on the old site, but crowned the summit of a green hill, where nothing more dangerous ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... the Romans as a defence from rain; and this is curious enough, for we know that the theatres were protected by the velarium or awning, which was drawn across the arena whenever a sudden shower came on; strange that this self-evident application of the Umbrella should not have occurred to a nation generally so ingenious in the invention of every possible luxury. Possibly the expense bestowed in the decoration of the umbraculum was a reason for ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... that the river had not flowed there a few years previously; in some parts beds of sand and gravel were spread out; in others, the solid rock had been worn into a broad channel, which in one spot was about 40 yards in breadth and 8 feet deep. It is self-evident that a person following up the course of a stream will always ascend at a greater or less inclination. Mr. Gill therefore, was much astonished when walking up the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going downhill. He imagined that the downward slope had a fall of about 40 or 50 ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... as I had the pleasure of informing the reader before, has built up for me a considerable circle of men and women admirers. With self-evident emotion I shall tell of the pleasant hours of our hearty conversations, which I modestly ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... the program which you have laid out for yourselves as a means of cultivation. In their due proportion they should (although they do not) form a part of the outfit of every educated man. That they should be especially cultivated by Jewish young people is self-evident, and, for several thousand years, they ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-evident." ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... an effort we retrace our steps to the intellectual position of a St. Bernard, a St. Francis, or the Imitatio Christi. Apart from the difficulties of an unfamiliar terminology, we have become estranged from ideas which then were commonplaces; beliefs once held to be self-evident and cardinal now hover on the outer verge of speculative thought, as bare possibilities, as unproved and unprovable guesses at truth. Our own creeds, it may be, rest upon no sounder bottom of logical demonstration. But they have ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... in recompense for voicelessness. The Count spoke like one who could sing, but his throat was delicate, and so the world lost a great singer. Of most instruments he spoke with a half-concealed contempt. But of the violin he said nothing. He was not a man to turn the conversational overflow upon self-evident facts. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... was on the ground of its non-agreement with just principles; and she always sustained her positions with the clearest and most direct modes of argumentation. Not with elaborate reasonings, but rather in the declaration of things self-evident—the quick perceptions of a pure, truth-loving mind. How inestimable the blessing ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... Now with regard to this attribute, there is one thing to be recognized; but it is not self-evident. It is this: that God is omnipotent in the moral realm, as in the physical. This may be disputed. It will be freely granted that in the physical world God has all power. But in the moral sphere, is not even divine power limited ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... For self-evident reasons the title should be short. Aptness and specificness do not require an epitome of the story; and a title like "Why Tom Changed His Opinion of Me," or "What the Rabbit Drive Did for Me" is prosy as well as long. It used to ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... in a late article, distinctly repudiates Lady Byron's statements as sources of evidence, and throughout quotes statements of Lord Byron as if they had the force of self-evident propositions. We consider such a course contrary to common sense as ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to the Force exactly as long as had the First Sergeant himself, which was from the dawn of the Force's existence. And John G. is a gentleman and a soldier, every inch of him. Horse-show judges have affixed their seal to the self-evident fact by the sign of the blue ribbon,[70-1] but the best proof lies in the personal knowledge of "A" Troop, soundly built on twelve years' brotherhood. John G., on that diluvian night, was twenty-two years old, and still every whit as clean-limbed, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Bond Street in every curve? I should have thought it was self-evident. Margot said I was shabby, and that a new hat would do me good, so we went out and bought it. Do you think I am extravagant? It's better to spend on this than on medicine, and three guineas isn't expensive ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... all probability there never will be. Since the wholesale dissolution of religious beliefs wrought in the last century, the whole issue between Romanism and Protestantism, regarded as dogmatic systems, is practically dead. M. Renan is giving expression to an almost self-evident truth, when he says that religious development is no longer to proceed by way of sectarian proselytism, but by way of harmonious internal development. The contest is no longer between one theology and another, but it is between the theological and the scientific methods of interpreting ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... cannot be surrounded. But the heavens are finite too, for they make a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. If they were infinite it would take an infinite time to complete a revolution. A finite body cannot have an infinite power. This Saadia regards as self-evident, though Aristotle, from whom this statement is derived, gives the proof. Hence the force or power within the world which keeps it going is finite and must one day be exhausted. But this shows also that it could not have ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... and intelligent effort to understand and improve one's own voice. I hope I shall not seem to assume the dignity of an authority which no personal taste can claim, if I beg a hearing for the following elements of manner and voice, which appeal to me as essential. They will, probably, appear self-evident to my readers, yet they are often found wanting in the public school teacher; it is so much easier to say "what were good to do" ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... or Principles, that is real, universal, self-evident propositions. They are—(1) real propositions; not, like 'The whole is greater than any of its parts,' merely definitions, or implied in definitions. (2) They are regarded as universally true of phenomena, as far as the form of their ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... gave its own answer. The cause of this wandering was so self-evident that Warren Starr would not have asked it had he not been in such a state of mental agitation as a person feels when certain he is on the eve ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... that strikes the stranger at Nice is its Italian population. These black-eyed, dark-complexioned, raven-haired, easy-going folks form as distinct a type as the fresh-complexioned, blue-eyed Alsatian. That the Niois are French at heart is self-evident, and no wonder, when we compare their present condition with that of the past. We see no beggars or ragged, wretched-looking people. If the municipal authorities have set themselves the task of putting down mendicity, they have succeeded. French enterprise, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... believe that the gods whom the Greeks and the Romans worshipped and believed in exist or have ever existed; we hold them to be productions of the human imagination to which nothing real corresponds. This view has nowadays become so ingrained in us and appears so self-evident, that we find it difficult to imagine that it has not been prevalent through long ages; nay, it is perhaps a widely diffused assumption that even in antiquity educated and unbiased persons held the same view ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... harangues, as a triumphant general of yore his spolia opima. Of metaphysics he knew enough to confound all hearers and himself into the bargain. In logic he knew the whole family of syllogisms and dilemmas, and was so proud of his skill that he never suffered even a self-evident fact to pass unargued. It was observed, however, that he seldom got into an argument without getting into a perplexity, and then into a passion with his adversary ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... to you on a more serious subject. Pardon me if I tell you that I think you are a happy man, and excuse me if I add, that if you do not keep yourself so I shall not think you a wise one. A good wife is better than a good-for-nothing mistress.—A self-evident proposition!—A stupid truism! Yes; but if every man who knows a self-evident proposition when he sees it on paper, always acted as if he knew it, this would be a very wise and a very happy world; and I should not have occasion ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... a suit of celestial armor—a helmet, consisting of the principles of piety, of justice, of honor, of benevolence, with which from his earliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the presence of all his brethren; a spear, studded with the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence; a sword, the same with which he had led the armies of his country through the war of freedom to the summit of the triumphal arch of independence; a corselet and cuishes of long experience ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... that the defence of the cause of human freedom is falling into younger and more vigorous hands. That, in three-score years from the day of the Declaration of Independence, its self-evident truths should be yet struggling for existence against the degeneracy of an age pampered with prosperity, and languishing into servitude, is a melancholy truth, from which I should in vain attempt to shut my eyes. But the summons has gone forth. The youthful ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister's departure from the house on that fatal evening. That her testimony on this point would be invaluable was self-evident, for proofs were plenty of her having haunted her sister's rooms all the evening in a condition of more or less delirium. She was alone in the house and this may have added to her anxieties, all of the servants having gone to the policemen's ball. It was on their return in the early morning ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... moment's intuition. It was physically impossible that she should have disappeared into any one of the houses which had their entrances within the dark tunnel he had just traversed. Apart from the presumptive impossibility of her being lodged in such a quarter, there was the self-evident fact that he must have heard the door opened and closed. Secondly, she could not have turned to the right, for in that direction the street was straight and without any lateral exit, so that he must have seen ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... young man so untrammelled by prejudice it was self-evident that helpless philanthropists like Orlando G. Spence were just as much the natural diet of the strong as the lamb is of the wolf. It was pleasanter to eat than to be eaten, in a world where, as yet, there seemed to be no third alternative; and any scruples one might ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... proposition is self-evident," the stop-gap said, supplying himself with a small bunch of the grapes which nobody ever takes at dinner; the hostess was going to have coffee for the women in the drawing-room, and to leave the men to theirs with their tobacco at the ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... surprising rapidity, and will for the rest of life go through his paces, waltzing, kneeing, and saluting with hardly a touch of the whip. Whether this is the result of superior horse-womanship on the part of American wives or a trait peculiar to sons of “Uncle Sam,” is hard to say, but the fact is self-evident to any observer that our fair equestrians rarely meet ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... easy that the reader of his despatches forgets how completely his task had baffled all his predecessors, and that several generations of colonial secretaries had refused to admit what in his hands seemed a self-evident truth. At the outset Elgin's own mind had not been free from serious doubt. He had come to Canada with a traditional suspicion of the French Canadians and the progressives of Upper Canada; yet within a year, since the country so willed it, he had accepted a cabinet, ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... and hate and eat and sleep (with one eye open). During the last five years furs have been increasingly fashionable, and to this end no one cause has contributed so strongly as the automobile. The exhilarating motion makes necessary clothing of compact texture. This truth is self-evident and does not require the involved chain of reasoning by which a friend over our milkless teacups last night strove to prove that by all laws of the game ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... in the Arabic world, where alone there was progress in the mediaeval epoch, the learned men were, for the most part, physicians. Now the meaning of this must be self-evident. The physician naturally "intends" his mind towards the practicalities. His professional studies tend to make him an investigator of the operations of nature. He is usually a sceptic, with a spontaneous interest in practical science. But the theologian "intends" his mind away ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... thing! And I shall be twenty-four! At such age a man does not think of any ladies for he has something else to do; that is self-evident." ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... as a scientific workman we may accept on the abundant testimony of the experts who know the solid worth of his work; his skill as a literary artist we can all appreciate, the charm of his style being self-evident."—Philadelphia Telegraph. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... govern us in dealing with those whom we call unbelievers, with heathen, and with all who do not accept our religious views. The Jews are with us as a perpetual lesson to teach us modesty and civility. The religion we profess is not self-evident. It did not convince the people to whom it was sent. We have no claim to take it for granted that we are all right, and they are all wrong. And, therefore, in the midst of all the triumphs of Christianity, it is well that the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... spirits when provoked (causelessly and cruelly provoked) are the most determined. The reason may be, that not taking up resolutions lightly—their very deliberation makes them the more immovable.—And then when a point is clear and self-evident, how can one with patience think of entering into an argument or ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... out to explain the causes of the "Origin of Species," with the statement that "no two individuals of the same species are exactly alike; each tends to vary." This is a self-evident fact, and is very properly used as a starting point for Variation. The next step is then stated as "variations are transmitted, and therefore tend to become permanent," which also is self-evident, and tends to prove the reasonableness ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the rest. Now it is precisely the portions left without explanation in parables partially explained, that must in the nature of the case be to us most uncertain. It may be assumed regarding them that their spiritual meaning is either self-evident, and therefore required not a comment, or of subordinate importance, and therefore did not obtain one. In this case it is certain, from the diversity of opinion that prevails regarding them, that these portions are not easily ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... also self-evident that we must stay here and rescue the Tellurians now upon Europa and Callisto, but we are not yet in position to decide just how that rescue is to be accomplished. Four courses are apparently open to us. First, to attempt ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... Eden, Aunt Davies and I—Oh!" The table being between the sofa and the door the poor gentleman's actual condition was not self-evident from the latter, but Susan was now in the middle of the room and her gayety gave way in a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... he did." She brushed the self-evident aside and returned to her point. "He does care for you. That, at least, you ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... this. They create a mental atmosphere around them which is as impenetrable to conviction in certain matters as a brick wall is to a parched pea. They will fall back on any loophole of a theory, however imbecile and far-fetched, rather than accept some simple and self-evident solution that they start out by regarding as impossible. And Aunt Charlotte was a very apposite specimen ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... would you then have prosecuted me?" But the law has nowhere made any such exception. It follows, therefore, that it is not every possible circumstance which is mentioned in the written law but that some things which are self-evident are guarded against by unexpressed exceptions. Then he will urge, that nothing could be carried on properly either by the laws or by any written document whatever, or even in daily conversation, or in the commands given ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... determination to study law and become a useful man in the world she thought better of him. When he came up in June it became clear that he was decidedly in love with her, for none of Mother Eve's daughters are ever long in doubt on that point. So self-evident were his feelings that she at that time felt compelled to avoid giving him a chance to express them. Her heart was and always had been entirely free from the pangs of love, and while his devotion was in a way quite flattering, the one insurmountable barrier was ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... as averse to interpolation or alteration of the text, when sense can by any rational supposition be made of it, as my opponent, or any true lover of the poet and the integrity of his language, can possibly be; but I see nothing rational in refusing to correct an almost self-evident misprint, which would redeem a fine passage that otherwise must always remain a stumbling-block to the most intelligent reader. We have all I trust but one object, i. e. to free the text of our great poet from obvious errors occasioned by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... a way to explain what seemed to her a self-evident truth. "I mean—privacy," she said. "For instance, if you were in love, you'd not want everybody to know ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... glared at the speaker as if wroth with him for proposing so simple and self-evident a means of getting at the water at a time when they had only succeeded at the risk of ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... persuade himself that holiness consists in the beauty of his composition, and in the ornament of eloquence, so also a simple and unpolished man must not imagine that his ignorance constitutes him a saint. This is even still clearer, when this man may not be ignorant. Now, it is self-evident that a Friar Minor, cleric, or priest, is obliged, in conscience, according to the talent he has received from Heaven, to study carefully, in order to be competent to fulfil properly the ministries of preaching and ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... though generally an unlicensed tribe—an Ishmaelitish race—whose hands were against all men, were not so sure that they had not been guilty of a crime, not merely against the laws of man and human society, but against the self-evident decrees and dictates of God; and with this doubt, at least, if not its conviction, in their thoughts, their victory, such as it was, afforded a source of very ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... his work must be useful from his point of view. The things that he works upon must be valuable to him personally. It is not enough for the teacher to be satisfied with the value of the subject matter. It must, as far as possible, be self-evident to the ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... from a natural course of reasoning, that there has never been an effected without a cause, and we infer from this, that there can be no action, either in animate or inanimate matter, without there first being some cause to produce it. And from this self-evident fact we know that there is some cause for every impulse or movement of either mind or matter, and that this law governs every action or movement of the animal kingdom. Then, according to this theory, ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... having in the first place concealed the birth of a child, and further of having killed the child so born. I have no doubt in my own mind that she is not guilty of either—the court will itself arrive at this self-evident conclusion. Concealment of birth—the child was born in the middle of the day. True, the mother is alone at the time—but who could have been with her in any case? The place is far away in the wilds, the only living soul within reach is a man—how could she send for a man at such a moment? ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... enters into conflict with the darkness and evil of the world. This speculation is but thinly clothed in the form of a biography of Jesus. That an account completely dominated by speculative motives gives but slight guarantee of historical truth, was for Baur self-evident. The author remains unknown, the age uncertain. The book, however, can hardly have appeared before the time of the Montanist movement, that is, toward the end of the second century. Scholars now rate far more highly than did Baur the element of genuine Johannine tradition ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... It is self-evident, however, that the author of those statements did not contemplate that reliable parties[29] would see the Donner camps before prowling beasts, or time and elements, had destroyed all proof of his own and ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... continued Barbican, "is that it is from the visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This is self-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only between this visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sun would be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind to be witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first, when we, terrestrians, see ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... mere matter of logical definition, it is well-nigh self-evident that the theory of natural selection is a theory of the origin, and cumulative development, of adaptations, whether these be distinctive of species, or of genera, orders, families, classes, and sub-kingdoms. ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... that what is most palpable is least perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what I say is self-evident and indisputable, that in many Elementary Schools in this country the education given seems to be based on the assumption that my "truisms" are absolutely false. In such schools the one end and aim of the teacher is to do everything for the child;—to feed him with semi-digested ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... politics but in business. "We want the whole business [city business] if we can get it." If "we win, we expect everyone to stand by us." Then he uttered what must have been to every citizen of understanding a self-evident truth, "I am working for my ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... you; a thing with which you were not thoroughly familiar. I will therefore explain some things in language, since you are not familiar with the mechanism of thought transference. The Five, a self-perpetuating body, do what governing is necessary for the entire planet. Their decrees are founded upon self-evident truth, and are therefore the law. Population is regulated according to the needs of the planet, and since much work is now in progress, an increase in population was recommended by the Five. My companion and I therefore had three children, instead of the customary ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... self-evident that the Maker of such an eye was acquainted with the properties of light, and the alternations of night and day, as well as with the mechanical contrivances for adjusting the eye to these variable circumstances. He has given us an eye capable of seeking knowledge ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... such, so self-evident to one who possesses it, seems to be wanting, except in rudimentary fashion, in a great many people. They are probably few, however, who do not feel some stirrings when they look through the stained glass of a cathedral window or upon the red of Venetian glass, or who are entirely ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... correspondents (Vol. ii., p. 405. and vol. iii., p. 52.) approve of, and confirm Mr. Knight's suggestion of a ring dial, as though it were so self-evident as to admit of no denial. Nevertheless, neither he nor they have shown any good reason for its adoption: even its superior antiquity over the portable time-piece is mere surmise on their parts, unaccompanied as yet by any direct proof. In point of fact, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... that literature alone is competent to supply this knowledge. After having learnt all that Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity have thought and said, and all that modern literatures have to tell us, it is not self-evident that we have laid a sufficiently broad and deep foundation for that criticism of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... source. The butler denied having even heard it. Was this to be believed? Did not this very denial prove that it was he and no other who had thus shocked the proprieties of this orderly household? It certainly seemed so; yet where all was strange, this strange and incomprehensible denial of a self-evident fact by the vindictive Nixon might have its source in some motive unsuggested by the circumstances. Certainly, Nixon's mistress appeared to have a great deal of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... abstract principles of right and wrong. Its solution must be obtained from physiology, not from ethics or metaphysics. The question must be submitted to Agassiz and Huxley, not to Kant or Calvin, to Church or Pope. Without denying the self-evident proposition, that whatever a woman can do, she has a right to do, the question at once arises, What can she do? And this includes the further question, What can she best do? A girl can hold a plough, and ply a needle, after a fashion. If she can do both better than a man, she ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... man to be six feet high, and of every woman to be five feet four, was regarded as self-evident until women asserted their undoubted right to be six feet high also, when some confusion was introduced into the interpretation of this rhetorical fragment of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is so self-evident that we will not attempt 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 ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... 'The moral is self-evident,' replied the story-teller. 'It is this: however bad the woman whom one happens to possess may be, be certain it is always possible to ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... to confess," she said, "and my confession will be my defense, although it will not be sufficient to save me from the scaffold. Listen to me, all of you! Why deny that which is self-evident? I was alone with my husband when he died. The servants and the doctor have testified to this. Hence, only I could have killed him. Yes, I committed the crime, but another man forced me ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... in the realm of trade and commercial policy, it would seem to be self-evident that with regard to capital it would be still more difficult and undesirable to impose restrictions than with regard to the entry of goods; and above all, it seems to be obvious that at any rate the free entry of capital into this country is a matter which should be specially encouraged ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... Jabberwock nature. But who can pretend to believe in a ship which comes against the rocks in a storm and anchors there while the captain goes ashore to see whether shipwreck is imminent? That the majority of opera-goers cannot live near the sea is self-evident, and that few of them should ever have seen a shipwreck unavoidable; but surely anyone who has crossed the Channel must have a vague suspicion that to place this vessel against the rocks in a tempest is the last thing a seaman would dream of doing, and that, if ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... attitude of the Lutherans towards their symbols, and such their evaluation of pure doctrine, it was self-evident that the public teachers of their churches should be pledged to the confessions. In December 1529, H. Winckel, of Goettingen, drew up a form in which the candidate for ordination declares: "I believe ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... specialization of parts and functions as the genuine condition of unity. The free play of intelligence and interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
