"Sophism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... logic of Mr. Freeman was, that other professions also acquire property without paying an equivalent, and therefore gamblers were not criminal! We marvelled that a man of his sagacity should venture on so gross a sophism. He alluded to speculators and stock-jobbers, who gained their thousands without an exchange of values, and exulted that the gambler was no worse. But could this make the gambler an honest man, because other men were rogues? How desperate the cause ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... more profitably employed in attempting to discover and expose the paralogisms, by the magic of which such a faith could find admission into minds framed for a nobler creed. These, it appears to me, may be all reduced to one sophism as their common genus; the mistaking the conditions of a thing for its causes and essence; and the process, by which we arrive at the knowledge of a faculty, for the faculty itself. The air I breathe is the condition ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 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 all countries alike, the only ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... purify or defile the immaterial spirit; but the correspondence between the outward and inward life cannot be denied without divesting morality of all meaning. The maxim of Plotinus, that "the mind can do no wrong," when transferred from his transcendental philosophy to matters of conduct, is a sophism no more respectable than that which Euripides puts into the mouth of one of his characters: "The tongue hath sworn; the heart remains unsworn." Every act of the will is the expression of a state of the soul; and every state of the soul must seek to find expression ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... experienced order of nature, by arguing from the attributes which you ascribe to your gods. You seem not to remember, that all your reasonings on this subject can only be drawn from effects to causes; and that every argument, deducted from causes to effects, must of necessity be a gross sophism; since it is impossible for you to know anything of the cause, but what you have antecedently, not inferred, but discovered to the full, in ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... distinguish, by 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, is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... distress; and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste: the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the eldest son of his father's reign. But the empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who, ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... his journey without further delay. Good Mrs. Coleman's agitation on our arrival bad been produced by the consciousness that Mr. Vernor would by no means approve of the addition of two dangerous young men to the party; however, Freddy consoled her by the ingenious sophism that it was much better for us to have arrived together than for him to have returned alone, as we should now neutralise each other's attractions; and, while the young lady's pleasure in our society would ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the cobwebs of interpretation and sophism from this Work of the heart," he cries; "every spider's web in the Mosque, I would sweep away. The garments of your religion, I would have you clean, O my Brothers. Ay, even the threadbare adventitious wrappages, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Liv. p. 422, Gram. 340, obs. 1. Goer. qu. Terence Heaut. V. 1, 59 quot incommoda tibi in hac re capies nisi caves, cf. also 127, 140 of this book. The present is of course required by the instantaneous nature of the action. Chrysippo: he spent so much time in trying to solve the sophism that it is called peculiarly his by Persius VI. 80. inventus, Chrysippe, tui finitor acervi. The titles of numerous distinct works of his on the Sorites and Mentiens are given by Diog. Tria ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... man who was helped by being a deserter, sir," was the Sergeant's answer to the chaplain's kindly sophism, "but Lawrence is a penitent man—that I see with my own eyes. I don't need no chaplain ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... Nevertheless, Lodovico was elected Duke of Milan. 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 ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... is kindled within him. No, the child had only breathed upon the former fire. It had always been the mother that he loved, but now a little more than recently, no doubt, because of her daughter, this reincarnation of herself. And he formulated this decision with the reassuring sophism: "One loves but once! The heart may often be affected at meeting some other being, for everyone exercises on others either attractions or repulsions. All these influences create friendship, caprices, desire for possession, quick and fleeting ardors, but not real love. That this ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... history and Government of their common country as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... 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 ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... examines arbitrarily 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 tortoise has covered ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... be accused, and justly, 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 in a few happy and highly ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... evidence, repels the great multitude of religious thinkers who are not otherwise sufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to care to examine these claims. To say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that from certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must follow syllogistically—a statement that would be more interesting were the said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world. Still it may ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... 497; word sense, tongue sense. false reasoning, vicious reasoning, circular reasoning; petitio principii [Lat.], ignoratio elenchi [Lat.]; post hoc ergo propter hoc [Lat.]; non sequitur, ignotum per ignotius [Lat.]. misjudgment &c 481; false teaching &c 538. sophism, solecism, paralogism^; quibble, quirk, elenchus^, elench^, fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet^; inconsistency, antilogy^; a delusion, a mockery, and a snare [Denman]; claptrap, cant, mere words; lame and impotent conclusion [Othello]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... (depraved devotion finds here the ancient sophism:) The holy by its essence, being holiness itself, always sanctifies. In the spiritual man, every thing is spirit, even what in another is matter. If, in its superior flight, the holy should meet with any obstacle that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... 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 as of justice. We ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... for then it would cease to be. Plato's Republic is like Bunyan's Town of Man-Soul,—a 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 all concupiscence, and so on through the rest. Each ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... in answer to this, and in vindication and honour of the poet and the artist. All that is here alleged to their disadvantage, is in reality little better than a sophism. The consideration of the articles he makes use of, does not in sound estimate detract from the glories of which he is the artificer. Materiem superat opus. He changes the nature of what he handles; all that he touches is turned into gold. The manufacture he delivers to ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... right place,—the right place, I mean, to act the most surely and the most effectively on the springs of life, or as an inspiration of good thoughts and desires. And in the further explication or amplification of the matter I shall take for granted that the old sophism of holding Shakespeare responsible for all that is said and done by his characters is thoroughly exploded; though it is not many years since a grave writer set him down as a denier of immortality; because, forsooth, in The ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... which may be regarded as identical with the sophism ex homonymia; although, if the sophism is obvious, it ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Douglas had no resource but to repeat the sophism he had hastily invented in his Springfield speech of the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... sentiments of obedience, and reverence, and justice, of the supremacy of the calm and grand reason of the law over the fitful will of the individual and the crowd; that it helped to withstand the pernicious sophism that the successive generations, as they come to life, are but as so many successive flights of summer flies, without relations to the past or duties to the future, and taught instead that all—all the dead, the living, the unborn—were one moral person-one ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... It is the sophism which has destroyed families, devastated cities, and retarded the moral progress of the world more than anything else. No single act of injustice is ever done on this earth but it tends to perpetuate the reign of iniquity. By the feelings it calls forth it keeps up the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... exist only through 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, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Some way iel. Somewhat iom. Somewhere ie. Son filo. Son-in-law bofilo. Sonata sonato. Song kanto. Songster kantisto. Sonnet soneto. Sonorous sonora. Soon baldaux. Soon (early) frue. Soot fulgo. Soothe kvietigi. Sop trempajxo. Sophism sofismo. Soprano soprano. Sorb sorpo. Sorcerer sorcxisto. Sorcery sorcxarto. Sordid malpurega. Sore ulcereto. Sorrel okzalo. Sorrow malgxojo. Sorry malgxoja—eta. Sort speco. Sort dece kunmeti, disspecigi. Sot drinkulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... state, but sin is not necessary. Sin consists in the voluntary confusion of the independence which is good with the independence which is bad; it is caused by the half-indulgence granted to a first sophism. We shut our eyes to the beginnings of evil because they are small, and in this weakness is contained the germ of our defeat. Principiis obsta—this maxim dutifully followed would preserve us from ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... [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, and to mix them in the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... is a sophism," cried Durtal, growing angry. "God has left to every man his liberty; no one is tempted beyond his power. If in certain cases, he allows the seduction to overpass our means of resistance, it is to recall us to humility, to bring us back to Him by remorse, for other ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... 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 to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... what? Truth 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 Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various |
