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Sophistry Quotes

Browse 55 quotes about Sophistry.

Sophistry Quotes

“It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God.”

HumorTruthDeathEnergyExistenceSupportSacrificeAtheismMoralityArgumentLogicValueProofRidiculousDevotionWickedEnduranceMartyrSantaSanta ClausAssumptionsPragmatismFalseImbecilitySophistryTheologiansLogicians
Book:Minority Report
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“Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.”

SchoolScienceEvolutionNative AmericanFirst AmendmentSuperstitionSeparation Of Church And StateTen CommandmentsMythsJargonPseudoscienceIntelligent DesignOrigin Of LifeSophistryCreation MythsCreationistsGod Did ItIrreducible ComplexityHammurabiCode Of HammurabiGoddidit
Author:Michael Shermer
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“The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murder'd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”

ReligionHeresyAmusingSophistryIconoclasmIntuitive Ethics
Book:The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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“We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world. If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules.”

IfsMenWorldWantMindMayLittlesBookDifferentForceGrowthQualityStyleTasteOppositesCatholicUnionsExcellenceNotionSpreadVarietyIntolerancePreciseArbitraryCapriciousSophistryDifferent Minds
Author:William Hazlitt
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“It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.”

LongMomentsSeemsHoursLove IsStruggleClearVictoryTestsDefeatConvictionFirmReasoningIronGatesResolutionIrrevocableSophistryAfter Hours
Book:Four Novels of George Eliot
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“We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.”

FirstsHas BeensPhilosophyUseAgeTermNaturalPartyPrinciplesIssuesMathematicsLaysReasoningBranchesMathematicianGroundedDisputesSectsAxiomsExcludedSophistryNatural Philosophy
Author:Thomas Reid
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“Young men, terminate, I beseech you, in your own experience, the sad divorce which has too often existed between intellect and piety. Take your stand, unswerving, heroic, by the altar of truth; and from that altar let neither sophistry nor ridicule expel you. Let your faith rest with a child's trust, with a martyr's grip, upon the truth as it is in Jesus.”

MenChildrenYoungJesusDivorceIntellectYoung ManHeroicRidiculeMartyrAltarsPietySophistry
Book:John Bunyan, a lecture
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“We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.”

FirstsHeartSelfHardLove IsCasesReadyJudgingSelf LoveThirdsOvercomingStriveDefeatSentencesFlatteryJuryExecutionersSophistry
Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
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“Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine On vain refinements vainly to refine, To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign, To boast of apathy when out of pain, And in each sentence, worthy of the schools, Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault That into practice they can ne'er be brought.”

SchoolPainEasyPoorDealsPovertyPracticeLaughingFitWineFaultsGlassesWorthySentencesPlentyVainApathyReignBoastRefinementWine GlassSophistry
Book:The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes
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“The American elite ... is almost beyond redemption. Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush -- sophistry washed down with Chardonnay.”

Life IsMoralClassRedemptionJournalistElitesIncapableRelativismDiscerningGildedSophistryMoral RelativismDerelictChardonnay
Book:The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories
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“Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.”

TwoIdeasTogetherFoundWishStyleProduceExpressionCostSpringFaultsConfusionReasoningObscurityProprietyDazzleDictionSophistry
Book:Machiavelli : the Founder of the Political
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“New technologies will always demand and deserve careful navigation and difficult readjustments. But the weakening or de facto abolition of copyright will not merely roil the seas, it will drain them dry. Those who would pirate what you produce have developed an elaborate sophistry to convince you that they are your victim. They aren't. Fight back.”

FightingDifficultTechnologySeaProduceDemandDeserveVictimCarefulDryConvincePirateDrainsNew TechnologyAbolitionCopyrightWeakeningNavigationSophistry
Author:Mark Helprin
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“There is too much ideological conformity in gender studies. The true-believers fashion the theories, write the textbooks and teach the students. When journalists, policymakers, and legislators address topics such as the wage gap, gender and education, or women's health, they turn to these experts for enlightenment. For the most part, they peddle misinformation, victim politics, and sophistry. They claim that their teachings represent the academic consensus, but that is only because they have excluded all dissenters.”

WritingTurnsTeachStudyToo MuchTeachingFashionStudentsTheoryEnlightenmentClaimsVictimGenderBelieverJournalistExpertsAddressesGapsConformityAcademicTopicsConsensusIdeologicalTextbooksLegislatorsExcludedMisinformationTrue BelieverSophistryWomen's Health
Author:Christina Hoff Sommers
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“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

IfsDoeMatterReasonFactsHandsSchoolAsksNumbersExistenceIllusionMathematicsMathCommitInstanceMathematicalFlamesAbstractReasoningDivinityQuantityVolumeMetaphysicsMatter Of FactEnquirySophistryHume
Author:David Hume
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“Yes, I laugh at all mankind, and the imposition that they dare to practice when they talk of hearts. I laugh at human passions and human cares, vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one severe and abrupt lesson from the colorless and shriveled lip of necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. It silences in a second all the feeble sophistry of conventional life, and ascetical passion.”

WantHumansHeartCarePassionResultsSilenceSituationPracticeLaughingVirtueMankindLessonsEmptyLogicLipsVicesDareArtificialConventionalSeverePettyImpositionVice And VirtueLocalitySophistryColorlessConventional Life
Author:Charles Robert Maturin
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“It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.”

KnowsSeemsSciencePerfectNumbersKnowledgeObjectsIllusionAccountsMereSpeciesBoundsAbstractQuantityDemonstrationSophistry
Book:Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)
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“Education without social action is a one-sided value because it has no true power potential. Social action without education is a weak expression of pure energy. Deeds uninformed by educated thought can take false directions. When we go into action and confront our adversaries, we must be as armed with knowledge as they. Our policies should have the strength of deep analysis beneath them to be able to challenge the clever sophistries of our opponents.”

ShouldAbleActionValuesEnergySocialChallengesPolicyExpressionPureWeakShould HaveDeedsCleverEducatedAnalysisOpponentsAdversariesOne SidedTrue PowerUninformedSophistrySocial Action
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?”

MenWorldShouldHumansSchoolIndividualUnderstandingThis WorldCapableShould IReincarnationHypothesisLaughableSophistry
Author:Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
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“The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.”

StillsLife IsMoralClassCitizensGoodnessOrdinaryAbsolutesSavedRedemptionJournalistRepublicElitesIncapableDegradationRelativismDiscerningGildedOrdinary CitizensSophistryMoral RelativismDerelictChardonnay
Author:Charles Dickens
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“After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."”

MatterPhilosophyTogetherScienceUniverseForceChurchForgetExistenceTalkingImpossibleFeetProveIdealsStonesSatisfiedDoctrineJohnsonBishopsIngeniousTime TogetherBerkeleyNon ExistenceRefutationSophistryAlacrity
Book:Life of Johnson
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“The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry, which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition.”

WayYearsLongProcessNaturalStudyCuttingGenerationsMastersGeniusFameDiseaseArgumentDifficultyAncientIntuitionSolveWitRelyArroganceDullContemptAncestorDispositionCautionImpatienceKnotsHappy DayAncient WisdomSagacitySophistry
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
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“If a close examination of the evidences of Christianity may be expected of one class of men more than another, it would seem incumbent upon lawyers who make the law of evidence one of our peculiar studies. Our profession leads us to explore the mazes of falsehood, to detect its artifices, to pierce its thickest veils, to follow and expose its sophistries, to compare the statements of different witnesses with severity, to discover truth and separate it from error.”

IfsMenMayDifferentSeemsLawChristianityClassStudyEvidenceErrorsProfessionExpectedLawyerStatementsWitnessComparePeculiarFalsehoodVeilsExaminationPierceMazesArtificeIncumbentsSeveritySophistry
Author:Simon Greenleaf
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