"Self-evident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... philosophers, in the whole phenomenon of the saint, it is undoubtedly the appearance of the miraculous therein—namely, the immediate SUCCESSION OF OPPOSITES, of states of the soul regarded as morally antithetical: it was believed here to be self-evident that a "bad man" was all at once turned into a "saint," a good man. The hitherto existing psychology was wrecked at this point, is it not possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of redressing his grievances, would be more likely to order him a lashing, for presuming to complain. Many melancholy instances occur here, which clearly illustrate the evils of slavery and its demoralizing influence on the human character. The arguments against slavery are deduced from self-evident propositions, and must carry conviction to every well organized mind; yet from their application being of too general a character, they seldom interest the feelings, and in the end leave less impression than the simple statement of a particular occurrence. During my stay, ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... second place, he has not a system. The dearest defenders and disciples are at fault. He attempted a theory of the universe, and his theory is not complete or self-evident. One man thinks he means this, and another, that: he has said one thing in one place, and the reverse of it in another place. He is charged with having failed to make the transition from ideas to matter. Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... translucence that belongs to it in the form of its eternity. He was in a position to judge. He had lived face to face and hand to hand with all forms of corporeal horror, and there was no mass of disease or of corruption that he did not see in its resplendent and divine transparency. It was simple and self-evident to him that the world of bodies was made so and not otherwise. It was also clear as daylight that the entire scheme of things existed solely to unfold and multiply and vary the everlasting-to-everlasting-world-without-end communion between God and the soul. To him this communion was a fact, a fact ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... tendencies which are choking the life out of me and such men as me. You business people are on the up grade just now, and you know it. Whoever goes under, you are safe to do yourselves most uncommonly well. I don't mean anything personal, of course. I am just stating a self-evident fact. Commerce is in the air—you all reek of success. And so even shopwalkers, like Worthington, and that thrice odious puppy Farge, grow sleek, and venture to spread themselves in the presence of their betters—in the presence of a scholar and a gentleman, who is well ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... be so self-evident as to be axiomatic that there are two distinct realms in God's universe. One is the realm that contains the Creator, and the other that which contains His creation. Of course, if we are pantheists, we will not admit that classification; but those who believe and accept the ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... For self-evident reasons the title should be short. Aptness and specificness do not require an epitome of the story; and a title like "Why Tom Changed His Opinion of Me," or "What the Rabbit Drive Did for Me" is prosy as well as long. It used to be the custom to make the title of a writing ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... projected into the air. Now, considering the deleterious nature of all illuminating gases, the reasons for perfect ventilation of rooms in which natural gas is used for heating and culinary purposes are self-evident, not alone as a protection against explosions, but for the health of the occupants of the house, remembering that a larger supply of oxygen is said to be necessary for the perfect combustion of natural than of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... showed the utter fallacy of constituting men the governing and women the governed class and closed as follows: "Attempt to prove that woman's claim to the right of suffrage is as valid as any that man can make would be like trying to demonstrate the truth of a self-evident proposition.... We ask the ballot for woman not merely because she has a right to it but quite as much because it is her duty to exercise that right. The irresistible power of that all-embracing organization, the State, holds you and me and all that are dear to us as ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... but they affirm to be the simplest statement of fact. Then is their whole theory of social relations—both in and out of the body—most philosophical, and, though at variance with the popular theology, self-evident. It is only when they come to their descriptive theism, if I may say so, and then to their drollest heaven, and to some autocratic not moral decrees of God, that the mythus loses me. In general, too, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... have exalted themselves with the help of misguided people; and, usurping authority, have lorded it over God's heritage. How wide the difference between the simplicity of the primitive gospel and the pompous ecclesiastical organizations and titles of modern times! It is self-evident that Christian union cannot be restored until this ecclesiastical machinery be put aside and the administration of Christ's kingdom be again entrusted to the local churches and their officers ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... came the threats of the 31st of December last, and, with profound respect, she threatened the Pope to sacrifice the Romagna; and her prayers or her threats, as you like, where are they now?" Again, of his own accord, M asserts, as a self-evident fact, that "morality and justice have no better sanctuary and no purer inspirations than are to be found in the Court of the Vatican." What slight difficulties he still entertains are removed at once. He asks ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... an admirable speech. The sentiments were hackneyed, the observations self-evident, and the moral obvious. His phrases had the well-known ring which distinguishes the true orator. Mr. Jackson was recognised everywhere to be a fine platform speaker, but his varied excellence could not be appreciated in a summary, and he had a fine verbosity. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... about for a way to explain what seemed to her a self-evident truth. "I mean—privacy," she said. "For instance, if you were in love, you'd not want ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... amid which the Elegy was composed were well adapted to soothe and cherish that contemplative sadness which, when the wounds of grief are healing, it is a luxury to indulge, and that the poet did indulge them is self-evident in many ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... of the Lutherans towards their symbols, and such their evaluation of pure doctrine, it was self-evident that the public teachers of their churches should be pledged to the confessions. In December 1529, H. Winckel, of Goettingen, drew up a form in which the candidate for ordination declares: "I believe and hold also of the most sacred Sacrament ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... chemical combination of two or more substances with the self-evident disengagement of great heat, ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... State Church. This was not adopted. It distinguished the inequality of men from the equality of rights. This was deemed self-evident and superfluous. It derived the mutual rights of men from their mutual duties—and this terrestrial definition also disappeared, leaving the way open to a higher cause. The adopted code was meagre and ill-composed, and Bentham found a malignant pleasure in tearing it to pieces. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Survival of Beneficial Processes Only.—It is self-evident that wherever there is a saving of labor needed to make a given amount and kind of product, there is an increase in the possible product that is created by the aid of a given amount of labor. If workers themselves get a share of the gains, this fact ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... hydrostatic pressure, which form the basis of all static and hydrostatic science to this day. And yet on that very question of the lever the great mind of Aristotle babbles—neither sees the thing itself, nor the way towards seeing it. But since Archimedes spoke, the thing seems self-evident to every schoolboy. There is something to me very solemn in such a fact as this. It brings us down to some of the very deepest questions of metaphysic. This mental insight of which we boast so much, what ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... self-evident that in this process we have the most powerful lever ever discovered for uplifting the fallen, and doing more in an hour than can be done by the usual methods in many months. Why, then, have we not had ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... century, the justice of each of these principles is self-evident. But in the seventeenth century there was no country in the world where it was safe to declare them. For doing so in some parts of Europe, a man would most certainly have been burned at the stake. For doing so in England, he would have been put in the pillory, or had his ears ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... was a self-evident fact. Years of crafty plotting had seamed Burroughs' face with lines that come from secret connivings—an offer here, a lure there; a sword of Damocles held low; an iron hand and a velvet glove—all these things made for age in heavy retribution. He complained of ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Algiers writes that such abuses have been discovered in the commissariate transactions of the province of Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before enlarging on this deplorable ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."— (Declaration of Independence, from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... The critics were always hard at work, proving that he was no poet, and demonstrating in the most logical manner that he was quite incapable of reasoning on the commonest topic. In addition to all this, his ignorance was self-evident; and though he was very fond of quoting Greek, they doubted whether he was capable of reading the original authors. The general impression of the English public, after the lapse of some years, was, that Herbert was an abandoned being, of profligate habits, opposed to all the institutions ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... us in dealing with those whom we call unbelievers, with heathen, and with all who do not accept our religious views. The Jews are with us as a perpetual lesson to teach us modesty and civility. The religion we profess is not self-evident. It did not convince the people to whom it was sent. We have no claim to take it for granted that we are all right, and they are all wrong. And, therefore, in the midst of all the triumphs of Christianity, it is ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... constitution and laws differing from it could have any authority, then that universal law could not be supreme. That supreme law is necessarily based on the equality of nations, of races, and of men. It is a simple, self-evident basis. One nation, race, or individual, may not oppress or injure another, because the safety and welfare of each is essential to the common safety and welfare of all. If all are not equal and free, then who is entitled to be free, and what evidence of his superiority ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. "If this be all," said Canning to his companion, "it will never do." Chalmers went on—the shuffling of the conversation ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... that His death was the crowning revelation of the love of God for man. And it is well to remind ourselves of our need of such a revelation. We speak sometimes as though the love of God was a self-evident truth altogether independent of the facts of New Testament history. "God is love"—of course, we say; this at least we are sure of, whatever becomes of the history. But this jaunty assurance will not bear looking into. The truth is that, apart from Christ, we have no certainty of ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... humane to prolong the war and crush the Boer resistance at the cost of much slaughter, merely in order to avenge defeats and vindicate a military superiority which the immensely greater forces of Britain made self-evident? A great country is strong enough to be magnanimous, and shows her greatness better by justice and lenity than by a sanguinary revenge. These moral arguments, which affect different minds differently, were ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... Revolution developed two striking pictures of the inconsistency of human nature. The author of the Declaration of Independence lays down at the very first this axiom: "We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And yet this man, with members of others who signed the famous document, was a slave-holder, and contributed to the maintenance of a system which was a reproach and a stain upon the ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... state of the country, a slight pause in the harvest before the Far Dips were cut, the stories about the new King and the numerous handbills on the walls, had seemed to warrant a little recklessness. It was a maxim about Middlemarch, and regarded as self-evident, that good meat should have good drink, which last Dagley interpreted as plenty of table ale well followed up by rum-and-water. These liquors have so far truth in them that they were not false enough ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... It is self-evident that peculiar feelings and convictions will prevent our regarding things as ludicrous, at which we should otherwise be highly amused. Religious veneration, or the want of it, often causes that to appear sacred to one person which seems absurd to another. Many Jewish stories ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... sufficient for the minimum demand, but at the same time that they reduced their own labour and consequently the supply of fish, they also took advantage of the new law of free trade, and advanced their prices in extortionate proportion. Instead of the self-evident prosperity that would benefit all classes, the sudden liberty to which the Cypriote was unaccustomed acted diametrically against all English expectations, and for the time ruined the market. This was told me by Colonel ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... of a virtue, and to pass from conscientiousness to bigotry is not a long nor difficult journey. All views are not equally true. This every sane mind holds as self-evident. There is a liberalism at this point which would run, if let go its logical course, to the sophist fallacy that truth did not exist, and therefore one view was as just as another—an attitude repugnant to all fine ethical natures. Now, conceiving we have the truth, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... distich is so self-evident that we might almost characterize it as trite. Yet the history of every science marks many eminent men, of superior intelligence, who have been arrested in the way of progress by a wholly contrary opinion, and have very innocently supposed that science had uttered to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... late article, distinctly repudiates Lady Byron's statements as sources of evidence, and throughout quotes statements of Lord Byron as if they had the force of self-evident propositions. We consider such a course contrary to common sense as well ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... atrocious murder, is of little comparative consequence, or whether it should attach it to both sides equally; but that the deliberate starving to death of twenty thousand helpless persons should be regarded as a crime in one or both of the parties concerned in it, seems to me self-evident. The simplest course would seem to be, that all non-combatants should be allowed to go out of a blockaded town, and that the general who should refuse to let them pass, should be regarded in the same light as one who were to murder his prisoners, or who were to be in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... with an air of painful reproach that nothing was counted a trouble in that establishment. He bowed his visitors out and informed them that it was a lovely afternoon, a self-evident axiom that the most ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... vainly endeavoured to answer the apparently unanswerable questions that had been asked by Zeno the Eleatic. At last Georg Cantor has found the answer, and has conquered for the intellect a new and vast province which had been given over to Chaos and old Night. It was assumed as self-evident, until Cantor and Dedekind established the opposite, that if, from any collection of things, some were taken away, the number of things left must always be less than the original number of things. This assumption, as a matter of fact, holds only of finite ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... which belong properly to my office I feel that my powers are very limited and not at all adequate to its demands. But I hope in the Lord that He will inspire in the heart of your Majesty a desire to introduce some effective remedy sufficient for these evils, since their character is self-evident. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... in a parabolic curve. I now ask: Do the "positions" traversed by the stone lie "in reality" on a straight line or on a parabola? Moreover, what is meant here by motion "in space" ? From the considerations of the previous section the answer is self-evident. In the first place we entirely shun the vague word "space," of which, we must honestly acknowledge, we cannot form the slightest conception, and we replace it by "motion relative to a practically rigid body of reference." The positions relative to the body of reference (railway carriage or embankment) ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... kinds of evidence and different degrees of consequent assent. He points out that neither Natural Religion nor Christianity can be proved true by demonstration like a conclusion in geometry, or in any kind of mathematical reasoning; that in default of this inference from self-evident premises to propositions of equal cogency, we must, in a matter of paramount practical importance, be content to judge, as fairly and soberly as we can, by that "probability" which Butler calls "the guide of life." Wilkins perceived, what few in his time perceived, ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... make it so to you, Lady Mabel," said Major Warren, who, impatient of his superior's monopoly, here tried to edge in a word. But the colonel cut him short with "That's a mere truism, Warren, a self-evident proposition. Let us have nothing more of that sort. One of the peculiarities of this climate, Lady Mabel, is that it has a double spring: one in February and another in April. Then we will see you take your appropriate place in the picture, representing the heyday of youth ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... criterion, whether in some quality of inherent rationality or in some utilitarian test of practicability, the truth itself has some attributes so far unquestioned and of which we may feel certain as being inherent, necessary, and self-evident. ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... the indulgence of frank speech Sell your manuscripts, but don't sell your soul Success is often a misfortune Summer days that come but to go There isn't much to feel here except what you see Things that are self-evident nobody seems to see Vanity at the bottom of even a reasonable ambition We confound events with ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... you accept it as self-evident? Is it as obvious, for instance, as that 'things that are greater than the same are greater than ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... inseparable." The Silver Republicans declared that they "recognized that the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence are fundamental and everlastingly true in their application to government among men." The Anti-Imperialists declared that the truths of the Declaration, not less self-evident to-day than when first announced by the Fathers, are of universal application, and cannot be abandoned while government by the people endures." In 1904, the Democratic party, while professing adherence to fundamental principles ...
— "Colony,"—or "Free State"? "Dependence,"—or "Just Connection"? • Alpheus H. Snow
... being concerned with man's welfare on earth can ever make headway unless it recognises this. Physical well-being is a moral consideration that should and must have our attention before aught else, and that this is so needs no demonstrating; it is self-evident. ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... between human science and Revelation. To the multitude who draw this inference, it matters not whether the protesting parties avow their belief in this contrariety or not; it is borne in upon the many, as if it were self-evident, that religious men would not thus be jealous and alarmed about Science, did they not feel instinctively, though they may not recognize it, that knowledge is their born enemy, and that its progress, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... worshipped and believed in exist or have ever existed; we hold them to be productions of the human imagination to which nothing real corresponds. This view has nowadays become so ingrained in us and appears so self-evident, that we find it difficult to imagine that it has not been prevalent through long ages; nay, it is perhaps a widely diffused assumption that even in antiquity educated and unbiased persons held the same view of the religion ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... It is self-evident that "c" cannot be used as often as "b," so the Declarer who likes always to say something will prefer "b," but the bidder who wishes, when he calls, to have distinct value attached to his announcement, will elect in favor of "c" rather than "b," and for ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... been on hand within the past twenty-four hours, and at least sixteen or seventeen were then in his presence. It is needless to say, that such a sight admitted of no contradiction—no argument—no doubt. The facts were too self-evident. The Colonel could say but little, so complete was his amazement; but he voluntarily attested the thoroughness of his conversion by pulling out of his pocket and handing to Mr. McK. a twenty dollar gold piece to aid the passengers ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... virtue, contribute to our happiness, but that the enjoyment of pleasure, let us say, voluptuousness, to include everything in a word, is the veritable aim and end whither tend all human acts. This is very clear to me, in fact, self-evident, and I am fully persuaded ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... surprised that you, who ought to see these things, have believed that I have taken any step which is out of harmony with our friendly relations, for beside these facts which I have mentioned, which are undisputed and self-evident facts, there are many more intimate ties of friendship which I can scarcely put in words. Everything about you charms me, but most of all, on the one hand, your perfect loyalty in matters of friendship, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evidence different from reality and truth, and not of logical appearance identical with them. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an appearance, and not because it is held to be something better than it is: the first principle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... condescend to notice his maligners, and then only to expose their ignorance, at the same time pledging himself never again to refer to their attacks. A thinking man, he could not but be fully aware that their style, and self-evident malice, could only add ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and wield it for its own purposes.' (See 'The Civil War in France; Address of the General Council of the International Workingmen's Association,' London, Truelove, 1871, p. 15, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of Socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also, that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... phenomenon perceived, the living subject with which this phenomenon is animated, and the vague yet real power involved in the life thus infused into it by the animal. Supposing any other animal to be the object perceived, these three elements are self-evident; since the phenomenon perceived in a given form causes the immediate assumption that it is a subject, actuated by a purpose of offence or defence, and hence follows the apprehension of a power capable of affecting him, which has in this case a real existence. Phenomenon, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... debating this question," continued Mr. Shellabarger, "I debate axioms, my apology is that there are not other questions to debate in Reconstruction. If," said he with well-timed sarcasm, "in the discussion, I make self-evident things obscure or incomprehensible, my defense shall be that I am conforming to the usages of Congress. I will not inquire whether any subject of this Government, by reason of the revolt, passed from under its sovereignty ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... so untrammelled by prejudice it was self-evident that helpless philanthropists like Orlando G. Spence were just as much the natural diet of the strong as the lamb is of the wolf. It was pleasanter to eat than to be eaten, in a world where, as yet, there seemed to be no third alternative; ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... pine-apples and oranges, and not one-hundredth part of the mangoes produced in North Queensland are consumed. That the quantity grown is trivial in comparison with what would be, were the demand regular and consistent, is self-evident. We want population to eat our produce, and then ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... prince of philosophers, but I do not always share his opinion. Aristotle and the other philosophers have planted the tree of science, but the latter has not by any means put forth all its branches or matured all its fruit." This thought, though it seems to us self-evident, was of great moment in the age of scholasticism. Bacon spent ten years in prison; but in spite of everything, he was so much under the influence of scholasticism that he considered it the task of philosophy to adduce evidence for the truth of the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... not by any means self-evident upon the face of it that an institution like the liberty of speech is right or just. It is not natural or obvious to let a man utter follies and abominations which you believe to be bad for mankind any more than it is natural or obvious to let a man dig up a part of the public road, or infect half ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... its supreme importance, it is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the self-evident fact that this foundation—Emission, or Placing of the voice—should be well laid under the guidance of a skilled and experienced singing-teacher. Nothing but disappointment can ensue if a task of such consequence be confided, as is too frequently the case, to one of the numerous charlatans ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... see Bond Street in every curve? I should have thought it was self-evident. Margot said I was shabby, and that a new hat would do me good, so we went out and bought it. Do you think I am extravagant? It's better to spend on this than on medicine, and three guineas isn't expensive for ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the founders of the American Republic undertook to supply a new and a secular foundation for this doctrine. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and equal." In other words, he put forth the astonishing proposition that human equality is self-evident. Many of us would incline to the opinion that the opposite is self-evident, that ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... is manifest that there can be nothing like a wide comprehension of sociology, unless through a competent acquaintance with man in all his faculties, bodily, and mental. Consider the matter in the abstract, and this conclusion is self-evident. Thus:—Society is made up of individuals; all that is done in society is done by the combined actions of individuals; and therefore, in individual actions only can be found the solutions of social phenomena. But the actions of individuals depend ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... self-evident fact that during the two centuries which elapsed between the time of Aenesidemus and Sextus, the standpoint of judgment in the Sceptical School had greatly changed. An example illustrating this change we find in a comparison of the presentation of Scepticism by Diogenes ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... The answer was self-evident. There was none. But there was no sting for him in what she asked. Rather her words came as a relief, for he could feel the strength behind them. He still ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... prove that no secrets incompatible with the common faith, or very important in themselves, could either have been propounded by the priests or received by the audience. And it may be further observed, in corroboration of so self-evident a truth, that it was held an impiety to the popular faith to reject the initiation of the mysteries—and that some of the very writers, most superstitious with respect to the one, attach the most solemnity to the ceremonies of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... solid to go upon in crying down the credit of the 54th beyond hearsay and the self-evident fact that they are half their nominal strength. To assume they won't put up a fight is a certain way of making the best troops gun-shy. We are standing up to our necks in a time problem, and the tide is on the rise. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... political state, for every practical purpose of a tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it is equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if possible without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as being coarse and turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. Aristocracy is the thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it means appealing to the self-confident people. Democracy means appealing to the different people. Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never have the cheek ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... of logical definition, it is well-nigh self-evident that the theory of natural selection is a theory of the origin, and cumulative development, of adaptations, whether these be distinctive of species, or of genera, orders, families, classes, and sub-kingdoms. It is only when the adaptations happen to be distinctive of the first (or lowest) of ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... bright and lustrous for ever. For Lucian, it was no defect in the woman that she was desirous and faithless; he had not conceived an affection for certain moral or intellectual accidents, but for the very woman. Guided by the self-evident axiom that humanity is to be judged by literature, and not literature by humanity, he detected the analogy between Lycidas and Annie. Only the dullard would object to the nauseous cant of the one, or to the indiscretions of the other. A sober critic might say that ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... trained at a known range. Indeed, he might even hazard a guess that the Andromeda's warm reception was arranged long before her masts and funnel rose over the horizon. That the islanders intended nothing less than her complete destruction was self-evident. Without the slightest warning they had tried to sink her; and now that she was escaping the further attentions of the field pieces, a number of troops stationed on South Point and the Isle des Fregates began ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... for a brief space, after my somewhat elaborate exposition of these self-evident analogies. Presently A PERSON turned towards me—I do not choose to designate the individual—and said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good "sahtisfahction."—I had, up to this moment, considered this complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... all self-evident propositions, they produced a pause in the discourse; for men do not deal with new ideas as freely as ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... that the river had not flowed there a few years previously; in some parts, beds of sand and gravel were spread out; in others, the solid rock had been worn into a broad channel, which in one spot was about 40 yards in breadth and 8 feet deep. It is self-evident that a person following up the course of a stream will always ascend at a greater or less inclination: Mr. Gill, therefore, was much astonished, when walking up the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going down ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ii., p. 405. and vol. iii., p. 52.) approve of, and confirm Mr. Knight's suggestion of a ring dial, as though it were so self-evident as to admit of no denial. Nevertheless, neither he nor they have shown any good reason for its adoption: even its superior antiquity over the portable time-piece is mere surmise on their parts, unaccompanied as yet by any direct proof. In point ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... requirements of military service, so that they often made better soldiers than the country recruits with their slower comprehension. Most of them were entirely unaware that they were socialistic agitators; they quite unconsciously imparted to their fellow-soldiers ideas that to them appeared self-evident, but that for the others meant an upheaval of their whole way ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... addition, deduction, mutation, and transposition of letters, or even syllables. Thus Mr. Webbe thinks that the derivation of the Greek [Greek: gyn] a woman, from the Chinese na-gin, is self-evident. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Reserve: When Limited.—Is the right which is reserved by a State to "amend" or "alter" a charter without restriction? When it is accompanied, as it generally is, by the right to "repeal," one would suppose that the answer to this question was self-evident. None the less, there are a number of judicial dicta to the effect that this power is not without limit, that it must be exercised reasonably and in good faith, and that the alterations made must be consistent with the scope and object of the grant, etc.[1651] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of equality, as well as their practise of it was their legacy to our people, and it remains now all that differences us from other nations. It was not Thomas Jefferson who first imagined the first of the self-evident truths of ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... grand words of the Jesuit, might be taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social differences are patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted by the people; its "reasons of state" are self-evident; it is at once cause and effect, a principle and a law. The common sense of the masses never deserts them until demagogues stir them up to gain ends of their own; that common sense is based on the verities of social order; and the social order is the same ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... to surrender to such self-evident demonstrations, and continued to request, each time more violently and in a higher key, that her younger sister might have a little shame, and her senor father a little feeling. But as nobody appeared with these requisites in their hands, to comply with these requests, there was nothing ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... Having announced this self-evident fact, Catherine walked off and left him to quiet Esther's alarms as he could. As she went she heard him turn to Esther and repeat his prayer that she should be gentle with him and give his sermon a ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... or benefit of its toleration in new States and Territories. It was bad enough to tolerate this evil in the old slave States, but it would be infamous to hand down to posterity a Constitution denying the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Toleration is not synonymous with approval, or existence with right. There is a most subtle error in the assumption of the indifference of the Constitution to freedom and slavery—that it advocated neither, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... reasonable man," Irene had always held a self-evident proposition. She had never, until a few days ago, conceived the possibility of a conflict between his ideas of right and her own. Domestic discord was to her mind a vulgar, no less than an unhappy, state of things. Yet, in the step she was now about to take, could she feel any assurance that Dr. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... by the blood-supply—has long been seen to be inadequate, since the restorative effect succeeds a short period of rest even in excised bloodless muscle. But that the phenomena of fatigue and recovery were not primarily dependent on dissimilation or assimilation becomes self-evident when we find exactly similar effects produced not only in plants, but also in metals (fig. 113). It has been shown, on the other hand, that these effects are primarily due to cumulative residual strains, and that a brief period of rest, by removing the overstrain, ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... consequently the particle at n is overborne by the pressure at m. Considering both in the same direction, yet the particle at n must give way, and move in the opposite direction. Just as the heaviest scale of the balance bears up the lightest, although both gravitate towards the same point. This is so self-evident that it would seem unnecessary to dwell upon it, had not the scientific world decided that the rotation of the earth can cause no currents either in the ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... questioning fit is coming on!" For Bjerregrav was an inquirer; he would ask questions about the wind and the weather, and even the food that he ate. He would ask questions about the most laughable subjects— things that were self-evident to any one else—why a stone was hard, or why water extinguished fire. People did not answer him, but shrugged their shoulders compassionately. "He is quite all there," they would say; "his head's all right. But he takes everything the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... know the effects of certain invariable remedies prepared without fraud. Of course it is self-evident that when old Pare eulogized 'sack medicine' and ordered his patients to carry pulverized medicaments in a little sack whose form varied according to the organ to be healed, assuming the form of a cap for the head, of a bagpipe for the stomach, of an ox tongue for the spleen, he probably ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... of contemporary socialism think it worth while to expose with so much minuteness a fallacy which intellectual socialists now all agree in repudiating, and to insist with such emphasis on facts which they profess to recognise as self-evident? To this question there ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... guardians against allowing such associations, for all that her standing in society is undeniable, and not a door is shut against her. We may have no absolutely tangible reason to give for our distaste beyond the self-evident facts that she paints her face and dyes her hair, dresses in a very decollete style, and affects a girlish manner that is out of harmony with her age and condition. But though we cannot formularize reasons, we have instincts; and sometimes instinct ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... humanity of the Child Jesus which we have been dwelling upon; there was also the preparation for the proper guardianship of both Mother and Child during the years of Jesus' immaturity. There are certain things which are self-evident when once we turn our minds to them; and it is thus self-evident that the care of our Lord and of His Blessed Mother would require the preparation of the man to whom they should be committed. In the state of society into which our Lord was born, He and His Mother would need active guardianship ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... receive her next directions. There were no further directions to give. The hideous dramatic representation of the woman's crime for which Geoffrey had asked was in no respect necessary: the means were all prepared, and the manner of using them was self-evident. Nothing but the opportunity, and the resolution to profit by it, were wanting to lead the way to the end. Geoffrey signed to Hester to ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places and in low places, to apply our principles to all existing evil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It appears to us a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more, it ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... be made with the beginning of the next preceding one, in that same proportion and measure the plants and animals had also changed, so that scarcely any more resemblance existed between these and those from which they originated. It is self-evident that amid such changes only those specimens continued to exist, which had adapted themselves in their progressive development in their organs and capacities in the best way to the new conditions of their existence. All those ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... twenty-one; but it had had some influence on my opinions, in isolating me from the objects which surrounded me, in confirming my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena, and in making me rest in the thought of two, and two only, absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator. At the age of fifteen also I was deeply impressed by the works of Thomas Scott, by Law's "Serious Call," by Joseph Milner's "Church History," and by Newton, "On the Prophecies." Newton's book stained ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... heard it. Was this to be believed? Did not this very denial prove that it was he and no other who had thus shocked the proprieties of this orderly household? It certainly seemed so; yet where all was strange, this strange and incomprehensible denial of a self-evident fact by the vindictive Nixon might have its source in some motive unsuggested by the circumstances. Certainly, Nixon's mistress appeared to have a great deal of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... as though it were a self-evident truism, that we cannot know that anything exists which we do not know. It is inferred that whatever can in any way be relevant to our experience must be at least capable of being known by us; whence it follows ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... was regarded by logicians as the only perfect type of syllogism, because the validity of moods in this figure may be tested directly by their complying, or failing to comply, with a certain axiom, the truth of which is self-evident. This axiom is known as the Dictum de Omni et Nullo. It may ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... men, morally speaking, are equal in the eyes of their Maker, appears to me a self-evident fact, though some may be called by His providence to rule, and others to serve. That the welfare of the most humble should be as dear to the country to which he belongs as the best educated and the most wealthy, seems but reasonable to a reflective mind, who looks upon ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... must be self-evident to everyone present that it is the most important question that can possibly occupy the mind of man—how much like God we can be—how near to God we can come on earth preparatory to our being perfectly like Him, and living, as ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... minds can reach. Most of us accept this persuasion as almost of the nature of an axiom, and hence the mere suggestion that our own volitions are really uncaused appears to us of the nature of a self-evident absurdity. A little thought, however, is enough to show that the only ground of reason which this strong prepossession can rest upon, is the assumption that the principle of causality is logically prior to that of mind. ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... that the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence contains five affirmations, declared to be self-evident truths, which, if truths, do sustain you and all abolitionists in every thing you say as to the right of the negro to liberty; and not only to liberty,—to equality, political and social. But I disagree with you as to their truth, and I ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... another conservative estimate, and thought I could pull you through by a slight majority. Now, it's different. While you may lose some votes from the 'near-silk stocking' class, yet for every vote so lost hundreds will rally to you. That all men are created equal is still a truth held to be self-evident. The spark of the spirit that prompted the Declaration of Independence is always ready to be fanned to a flame, and the Democrats have furnished us the fans in ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... self-evident to those who are versed in Speculations of Morality. For which Reason I shall not enlarge upon them, but proceed to a Point of the same Nature, which may open to us a more ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... should appeal to the sons to fulfill what the fathers promised but failed to perform—should appeal to them as the constituted executors of the father's will, to give full practical effect to the self-evident truths, that "taxation without representation is tyranny"—that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"? With an evident common interest in all the affairs of which government properly or improperly takes cognizance, we claim ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of the book will become self-evident as the reader labors through the medical part of the work. Our text-books are, as a class, even those on diseases of children as a specialty, singularly and unpardonably silent and deficient on the subject of either the prepuce and the diseases to which it ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... are we not bound to work by the laws of cause, if we wish an effect? If the heavens do move by cause when was its beings divorced from that great common law? Are we not bound to trust and work by the old and reliable self-evident laws, until something later has proven its superior ability to ward off ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... theory would be false, because it did not take into consideration the condition of the road and the fact that a horse cannot keep up the same speed for a long distance. Whatever impressions or conceptions of the mind may be self-evident or axiomatic truths, it is certain that our highest conception of truth must be taken as our only and necessary guide; but, knowing the variable part of our judgment, and knowing how very likely we are to be mistaken in our "think so's" and "feel so's," we ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... of a poetical sentiment expressed in "Pictor Ignotus"—and, by the insertion of a word or sentence in the notice of each, expanded or emphasized the meaning of several of the minor poems. I should have stated in my first Preface, had not the fact appeared to me self-evident, that I owe to Mr. Browning's kindness all the additional matter which my own reading could not supply: such as the index to the Greek names in "Aristophanes' Apology," and the Persian in "Ferishtah's Fancies;" the notes to "Transcendentalism," and "Pietro ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... community has borrowed one story does not prove borrowing in the case of any other story; and that a people has been a center of distribution of certain myths does not prove that it was the originator of all myths. These two propositions appear to be self-evident, but they have often been ignored in discussions of ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... a man like him, who lives at court, does not like to have a mad niece in his house. The thing is self-evident; if I'd continued to play my part of the man of the robe, I should have done the same in a similar case. But here, as you perceive, we don't care much for appearances; and I've taken her for a servant. She has shown more good sense than I expected, although she has rarely ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... to enlarge on so self-evident a consequence; yet, even in this case, we shall find something of that mixture of good, along with the bad, which is to be found in all ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... writer as Macchiavelli was so decidedly imbued with the earlier or mediaeval conception of the position of a prince that he treats it as a matter which is self-evident: he never discusses it, but tacitly takes it as the presupposition and basis of his advice. It may be said generally that his book is merely the theoretical statement and consistent and systematic exposition of the practice prevailing in his time. It is the novel statement of it in a complete ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... It is self-evident, however, that the author of those statements did not contemplate that reliable parties[29] would see the Donner camps before prowling beasts, or time and elements, had destroyed all proof of his own and his ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... be split, and thus the greater evil befall him. But those that personify the evil may goad him once too often. Dumba the lesser criminal—as also the less dexterous—has betrayed himself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff's turn come? That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... up, you know, because we're not properly dressed." The fact is self-evident. "Pa's always very tired in the morning," the voice continues; "of course, that's because he works hard all day. Are you ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... to be We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable certain inalienable rights; rights; that among these are that among these are ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... narrow cage on my melancholy journey home, and was touched to find that it quickly repaid my care and became very much attached to me. Minna greeted me with great joy when she saw this beautiful grey parrot, for she regarded it as a self-evident proof that I should do something in life. We already had a pretty little dog, born on the day of the first Rienzi rehearsal in Dresden, which, owing to its passionate devotion to myself, was much petted by all who knew me and visited my house during those years. This sociable bird, which ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... a being merits rather our derision than our pity; and it is only when it assumes to act its folly that it becomes capable of provoking republican indignation. In every other case it is too contemptible to excite anger. For my own part, when I contemplate the self-evident absurdity of the thing, I can scarcely permit myself to believe that there exists in the high-minded nation of France such a mean and silly ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... I shall ask for at first, and I shall test her, test her, my dear. I'll look at her through a magnifying glass. Of course, if they'd give me Jewel, it would be all I'd ask for; but they won't. That is self-evident." ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... self-evident?" he demanded. "I've been giving astrogation lessons to these characters. I certainly didn't do it to help them dump germ-cultures on Weald! I brought them here! Don't you see the point? These are space ships. They're in orbit around Weald. They're not manned ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... citizens are those who are naturalized. That the rules should be uniform by which aliens become citizens, is self-evident. After a brief discussion, the Constitutional Convention provided in Section 8, Clause 4, that Congress shall have the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... work, taking care to expend a proper part of his spleen on Mr. Toast, who, quite as a matter of course, suffered in proportion as his superior was made to feel, in his own person, the weight of Captain Truck's authority. It is perhaps fortunate that nature points out this easy and self-evident mode of relief, else would the rude habits of a ship sometimes render the relations between him who orders and him whose duty it is to obey, too nearly approaching ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... manuscript typewritten. This suggestion has the force of law. While it would seem self-evident that a manuscript written out in long hand has a mussy appearance, however neat the writing may be, the many hand-written manuscripts I have tried to read suggest the necessity for pointing out this fact. You surely handicap your manuscript by offering ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... which, had it been less ingenious, I could hardly believe to have proceeded from so great a man. Indeed, I am lost in wonder, that a philosopher, who had stoutly asserted, that he would draw no conclusions which do not follow from self-evident premisses, and would affirm nothing which he did not clearly and distinctly perceive, and who had so often taken to task the scholastics for wishing to explain obscurities through occult qualities, could maintain a hypothesis, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... disappeared into any one of the houses which had their entrances within the dark tunnel he had just traversed. Apart from the presumptive impossibility of her being lodged in such a quarter, there was the self-evident fact that he must have heard the door opened and closed. Secondly, she could not have turned to the right, for in that direction the street was straight and without any lateral exit, so that he must have seen her. Therefore she must ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford |
