"Self-evident truth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... acquired by society artificially, it must, if it do actually belong to society, have been come by naturally; and this accordingly is what Utilitarians really, though perhaps unconsciously, assume, treating moreover this gratuitous assumption of theirs as a self-evident truth. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... not limit our bodily wants to one thing; so it cannot be any worldly good he has in view. It must then be a need above, and of vastly more importance than any worldly consideration. On one occasion our Lord uttered a self-evident truth in these words: "He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." By darkness in this place ignorance of divine and spiritual things is meant. Again: "The people which sat in darkness saw ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... a savage; the Negro has been a savage; the lower order of Chinamen have been gross and sometimes bestial. The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, in their natural rights, which, as we had solemnly declared to be a self-evident truth, were theirs beyond question, have committed acts of barbarism. But in every case, these inferior and alien races, if they had been dealt with justly, in my opinion, would have been elevated by quiet, peaceful and Christian conduct on our part ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... come now to the statement of some of the consequences which follow from Mr. Spencer's view—already explained—as to how the higher warrant, by which we know the Indestructibility of Matter to be an axiom, a self-evident truth, originated. In his chapter upon "Ultimate Scientific Ideas" he says that Space and Time are "wholly incomprehensible," and that "Matter ... in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible as Space and Time." He affirms, as pointed out, that no experimental ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... those of contradiction and identity. A philosophical interest in the mathematical method has led to a logical study of axioms, but with a view rather to their fruitfulness than their intrinsic truth. Indeed, the interest in self-evident truth has always been subordinate to the interest in systematic truth, and the discovery of first principles most commonly serves to determine the relative priority of definite concepts, or the correct point of departure for a series ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... punishments, when applied to the school life of the young, is that it wholly externalises what is really an inward and spiritual process, the evolution of the youthful mind. Just as in the sphere of religion it is postulated as a self-evident truth that righteousness is not its own reward, nor iniquity its own punishment,—so in the sphere of education it is postulated as a self-evident truth, that knowledge is not its own reward, nor ignorance its own punishment. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation; but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas. That is at least one self-evident truth. A few free colored persons may get into the free States, in any event; but their number is too insignificant to amount to much in the way of mixing blood. In 1850 there were in the free States 56,649 mulattoes; but for the most part they were not born there—they came ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... illustration enters the understanding straight-forward in a direct passage, and is almost independent of the aid of written language. A picture of form is a proposition which solves itself. It is an axiom encompassed in a frame-work of self-evident truth. The best substitute for Nature herself, upon which to teach the knowledge of her, is an exact representation ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... Christian anarchist could have no associate, no object, no faith except the nature of nature itself; and his "larger synthesis" had only the fault of being so supremely true that even the highest obligation of duty could scarcely oblige Bay Lodge to deny it in order to prove it. Only the self-evident truth that no philosophy of order — except the Church — had ever satisfied the philosopher reconciled the conservative Christian anarchist to prove ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... philosophers of that day. He describes his natural rights,—defines society as a compact,—declares that no generation has a right to bind its successors, (a doctrine which Mr. Jefferson, and some foolish people after him, thought a self-evident truth,)—hence, no family has a right to take possession of a throne. An hereditary rule is as great an absurdity as an hereditary professorship of mathematics,—a place supposed by Dr. Franklin to exist in some German university. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various |
