Sophistry Quotes

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

It's possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.

The mediocrity of his [Winston Churchill's] thinking is concealed by the majesty of his language.... He mistakes verbal facilities for mental inspiration.

When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.

All appearances are real and negatio; sophistical: All reality must be sensation.

Aided by a little sophistry on the words "general welfare," the federal government claims a right to do not only the acts to effect that which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general welfare.

It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold Creation in my foot. Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly - I kill where I please because it is all mine. There is no sophistry in my body: My manners are tearing off heads - The allotment of death.

You explain right well, and you shew that you understand argument and are not a mere sophist since you accept that which cannot be denied.

When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book.

I had heard of the Cyclopes, and then of the tyrants, both savage inhabitants; but of the coming of this third race of monsters, armed with two-edged arguments, and fiercer than the burning shores of Taormina itself, I was unaware.

The laws were framed by certain well-meaning visionaries who, building republics in the air, have tried to reach political perfection on the assumption that humanity is perfect. So we have had philosophers instead of leaders, philanthropy instead of legislation, dialectic instead of tactics, and sophists instead of soldiers.

That Hegelian dialectics should provide a wonderful instrument for always being right, because they permit the interpretations of all defeats as the beginning of victory, is obvious. One of the most beautiful examples of this kind of sophistry occurred after 1933 when the German Communists for nearly two years refused to recognize that Hitler's victory had been a defeat for the German Communist Party.

The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in using a word in one sense in all the premises, and in another sense in the conclusion.

No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye.

The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking--but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them.

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical."

Do not let any sweet-talking woman beguile your good sense with the fascinations of her shape. It's your barn she's after.

Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.

Religion is a thing to be lived. It is not merely sophistry.

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

There must be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible.

Logic invents as many fallacies as it detects; it is a good weapon, but as liable to be used in a bad as in a good cause.

Socialism holds nothing but unhappiness for the human race. It destroys personal initiative, wipes out national pride ... and plays into the hands of the autocrats.... Socialism is the end of fanatics, the sophistry of so-called intelligentsia, and it has no place in the hearts of those who would secure and fight for freedom and preserve democracy.

If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini.

Oh, children, growing up to be Adventurers into sophistry, Forbear, forbear to be of those That read the rood to learn the rose.