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Fallacy Quotes

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Fallacy Quotes

“For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be used but made to be sold. All the collapse of their commercial system in their own time has been due to that fallacy of forcing things on a market where there was no market; of continually increasing the power of supply without increasing the power of demand; of briefly, of always considering the man who sells the potato and never considering the man who eats it.”

MenHas BeensMadeFormUsedHe ManDemandFundamentalsSellsDuesChiefsCapitalistCollapseFalsehoodConsumerismConsideringPotatoesHeresyFallacyOverconsumption
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.”

WorldBelieveMayImportantHelpingFeelingsSeemsIndividualCan DoEnvironmentMankindCreatingVoteElectionMajorityMiseryPresidentialImprovingFallacyHysteriaCan Do SomethingConceitedPresidential ElectionDoing Your BestReasonableness
Book:A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42
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“The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public . . . Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy.”

PeopleThinkingStillsBookTodayInterestReaderTomorrowPureLibraryBeing TrueManageExcellentServantDragonsLibrarianFallacyFieryPublic Servants
Author:William Osler
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“Probably the most pervasive false belief most of us harbor is the fallacy that only some superhuman act would have the power to turn our problems around. Nothing could be further from the truth. Life is cumulative. Whatever results we're experiencing in our lives are the accumulation of a host of small decisions we've made as individuals, as a family, as a community, as a society, and as a species.”

MadeProblemMotivationalLife IsTurnsIndividualBeliefCommunityDecisionResultsOur LivesSpeciesHostTruth Of LifeHarborsAccumulationFallacySuperhumanCumulativeSmall Decisions
Author:Tony Robbins
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“It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost.”

ThinkingTryingHas BeensImportantRealMightFormArtistLostStrongJusticeMistakeDoubtReaderCostSafeCriticismSticksTongueStrongestTemptedBest WorkFallacyReviewersWhen In DoubtSneerImportant Work
Author:Wilfrid Sheed
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“Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.”

IfsShouldHumansActionNaturalSimpleAnimalViewsProductsBehaviorArgumentShould HaveBasesAriseNervousPrimariesHuman BehaviorSelectionNatural SelectionFallacyNervous System
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“There's a tremendous popular fallacy which holds that significant research can be carried out by trying things. Actually it is easy to show that in general no significant problem can be solved empirically, except for accidents so rare as to be statistically unimportant. One of my jests is to say that we work empirically -- we use bull's eye empiricism. We try everything, but we try the right thing first!”

TryingFirstsUseShowsProblemEyeEasyResearchAccidentsSignificantRight ThingBullsUnimportantFallacyEmpiricism
Author:Edwin Land
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“If fallacies come knocking at my door,I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,And run the risk of barring one Truth out.And if pretension for a time deceive,And prove me one too ready to believe,Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.”

IfsBelieveFactsRunningLyingBlackBehindsDoubtRiskDoorsReadyProveShameBrandsScoreShelterDeceivingStubbornKnockingFallacyPretensionColossal
Book:Leafs On An Idle Breeze - My Inspirational Poems (Annotated Edition)
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“I think that it is a fallacy to suppose that helpful cooperation in the future will be assured by the attempted compulsion of an inflexible rule. Rather will such cooperation depend upon the fostering of firm friendships springing from an appreciation of community ideals, interests, and purposes, and such friendships are more likely to be promoted by freedom of conference than by the effort to create hard and fast engagements.”

ThinkingHardPurposeInterestCommunityEffortDependsIdealsAppreciationFirmHelpfulCooperationEngagementAssuredConferencesCompulsionFallacyFostering
Author:Charles Evans Hughes
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“Ignorance, as well as disapproval for the natural restraints placed on market excesses that capitalism and sound markets impose, cause our present leaders to reject capitalism and blame it for all the problems we face. If this fallacy is not corrected and capitalism is even further undermined, the prosperity that the free market generates will be destroyed.”

IfsWellsProblemFacesCausesSoundNaturalLeaderIgnoranceCapitalismBlameProsperityDestroyedRejectsExcessRestraintFree MarketFallacyDisapproval
Book:Pillars of Prosperity: Free Markets, Honest Money, Private Property
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“A science only advances with certainty, when the plan of inquiry and the object of our researches have been clearly defined; otherwise a small number of truths are loosely laid hold of, without their connexion being perceived, and numerous errors, without being enabled to detect their fallacy.”

Has BeensNumbersPlansObjectsResearchErrorsDefinedCertaintyInquiryFallacySmall NumbersConnexion
Book:A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
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“The more important point, however, is not about what the money does. It's about what has to be done to get the money. The effect of the money might be (democratically) benign. But what is done to secure that money is not necessarily benign. To miss this point is to betray the Robin Hood fallacy: the fact that the loot was distributed justly doesn't excuse the means taken to secure it.”

MeanDoeImportantDoneFactsMightTakenEffectsMissingExcuseSecureBetrayHoodFallacyRobinsBenignRobin Hood
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“The capacity for loving strangers, whether one thinks of them as fictional beings or stars one will never meet, is a profound reflection on the new consciousness whereby every individual leads his or life while aware of all the billions of other people on Earth. Perhaps it is a fantasy or a fallacy that we can feel for so many strangers. Perhaps it is a mask for selfishness. But no matter the modern stress on special effects, there isn't a sight in movies as momentous as shots of a face as its mind is being changed. And only movies have allowed that.”

PeopleThinkingFeelsMindMatterEarthFilmFacesIndividualStarsConsciousnessFantasyModernSpecialEffectsChangedReflectionShotsCapacityHollywoodSightStressProfoundStrangerBillionsSelfishnessMaskFallacySpecial Effects
Author:Edward Jay Epstein
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“Minds fettered by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning a proposition whether it is attested by sufficient evidence, but whether it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts as such, but for facts that will bear out their doctrine. It is easy to see that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into fallacies treads close upon the precipice of falsehood.”

MenMindFactsEasyAtheismHe ManBearsHabitPerceptionEvidenceScriptureDoctrineSufficientFalsehoodPropositionsAccordTruthfulnessFallacyPrecipice
Book:The Essays of George Eliot: Top Novelist Focus
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“One of the most persistent fallacies about the Christian Church is that it kept learning alive during the Dark and Middle Ages. What the Church did was to keep learning alive in the monasteries, while preventing the spread of knowledge outside them... Even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, nine-tenths of Christian Europe was illiterate.”

AgeChristianChurchDarkAliveAtheismMiddleCenturyLateEuropeSpreadPositive AtheismNinePersistentMiddle AgesNineteenth CenturyPreventingFallacyIlliterateChristian ChurchMonasteriesKeep Learning
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“I do not expect that the mere fact that I was once an evangelical apologist and now see things differently should itself count as evidence that I must be right. That would be the genetic fallacy. It would be just as erroneous to think that John Rankin must be right in having embraced evangelical Christianity since he had once been an agnostic Unitarian and repudiated it for the Christian faith.”

ThinkingShouldFactsWould BeChristianChristianityAtheismEvidenceMerePositive AtheismAgnosticChristian FaithEvangelicalFallacyUnitarian
Author:Robert M. Price
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“If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.”

IfsWorldReasonMightStyleExpressionAppreciateFancyObscureObscurityFallacyReally Deep
Book:Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life
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“It's a critical fallacy of our times ... that a writer should 'grow,' 'change,' or 'develop.' This fallacy causes us to expect from children or radishes: 'grow,' or there's something wrong with you. But writers are not radishes. If you look at what most writers actually do, it resembles a theme with variations more than it does the popular notion of growth.”

IfsShouldLooksChildrenDoeGrowsCausesGrowthNotionCriticalOur TimeThemeVariationFallacyRadishes
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement.”

WorldLittlesActorsWonderOpinionCasesGreaterWords Of WisdomConstantInjusticeStrikesTyrannySettingOppressionSettingsChiefsDumbBigotryCustomsDefianceTrumpetsFallacyExtravagantAmazementAstonishmentInjustice And Oppression
Book:Nicholas Nickleby: Easyread Edition
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“The fallacy is that politicians don't really do much about social issues. They just demonize their opponents as elitists and reap the benefit. It's a stupid way to do politics. Economic issues can more often be addressed concretely, and it would seem logical for people to vote their interests in this area.”

PeopleWaySeemsSocialInterestIssuesEconomicStupidPoliticianBenefitsAreasVoteOpponentsLogicalSocial IssuesReapFallacyOften IsElitistEconomic Issues
Author:Timothy Noah
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