"Sophism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have been satisfied, more than content, in the placid consideration of her charms of character. He found himself reduced to the absurd predicament of deciding to banish her from his thoughts—a last sophism which showed him, all too clearly, how wretched he was. Their silence, which had been due in the first instance to the sufficient delight of being in each other's company, became that long pause which arises from an unutterable embarrassment. Brigit felt by instinct ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... 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 house-breaker, 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 ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he possessed every disposition to hear reason, a strong, innate desire to do justice, and an ingenuousness that was singularly indisposed to have recourse to sophism to maintain an argument; or to defend a prejudice. Still he was not altogether free from the influence of the latter feeling. This tyrant of the human mind, which ruses on it prey through a thousand ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... lower civilisations. It disposes once and for all at least of the civilising mission of Germany. Evidently the Germans are the last people in the world to be trusted with the task. They are as shortsighted morally as physically. What is their sophism of "necessity" but an inability to imagine to-morrow morning? What is their non-reciprocity but an inability to imagine, not a god or devil, but merely another man? Are these to judge mankind? Men of two tribes in Africa not only know that they are all men, but can understand ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
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