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fallacy
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show 66 more with this conextual meaning
  • That's a fallacy.†   (source)
  • He saw magazine photographs in color, yellowing postcards of the sort sold in arcades for souvenirs, and it was a kind of ghostly review of the fallacy of his own life.†   (source)
  • And I'd have been failing there if I hadn't explained the fallacy in this mood thing you've suddenly developed.†   (source)
  • And then, still in the distance, I hear the throaty wail of "Splinter" by Fallacy pumping from someone's car.†   (source)
  • Fallacy.†   (source)
  • He waited so long that even I could hear the fallacy of what I was suggesting.†   (source)
  • He fears I put too much faith in the Tower helping me to locate April, and I admit here that he is quite right about that-my faith, that is-but our beliefs differ so greatly that John also trusts that there is little or no hope of any such physical structure providing a conduit, a medium that might reconnect us with our missing April, a fallacy in him I strive to correct!†   (source)
  • The entire history of science is a progression of exploded fallacies, not of achievements.†   (source)
  • Linguist John Baugh wrote that Labov's research, "The Logic of Non-standard English," "was the single most important article ever written that debunked the pervasive linguistic fallacies associated with cognitive-deficit hypotheses"—that is, the fallacy that speakers of Black English were somehow mentally backward.†   (source)
  • The inventors of this fallacy try to support it by perverting the true meaning of legal maxims of law interpretation.†   (source)
  • 'Fallacy!' proclaimed d'Anjou.†   (source)
  • They lean with the prevailing winds and employ every fallacy of logic in order to editorialize harmoniously with popular prejudices.†   (source)
  • But it is a "liberal" fallacy that equates the military mind with real evil and makes it the exclusive province of lieutenants or generals; the secondary evil of which the military is frequently capable is aggressive, romantic, melodramatic, thrilling, orgasmic.†   (source)
  • These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value — the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives — and to illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use.†   (source)
  • "It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me," said Lee, "that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to a man.†   (source)
  • The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind — surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy?   (source)
    fallacy = a mistaken belief
  • He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.   (source)
    fallacy = a common form of incorrect reasoning
  • Ranchers trying to stabilize their incomes fell victim to their own fallacy of composition.†   (source)
  • "That's a logical fallacy," Sim pointed out eagerly.†   (source)
  • "Name the nine prime fallacies," he snapped.†   (source)
  • If the forgoing argument is a fallacy, then I am deceived by it.†   (source)
  • When Dr. Juvenal Urbino returned from Europe he was already well aware of the scientific fallacy in these beliefs, but they were so rooted in local superstition that many people opposed the mineral enrichment of the water in the cisterns for fear of destroying its ability to cause an honorable rupture.†   (source)
  • Linguist John Baugh wrote that Labov's research, "The Logic of Non-standard English," "was the single most important article ever written that debunked the pervasive linguistic fallacies associated with cognitive-deficit hypotheses"—that is, the fallacy that speakers of Black English were somehow mentally backward.†   (source)
  • It's a total fallacy," said Dr. Ferris.†   (source)
  • This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted …. and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.†   (source)
  • The Boss knew all about the so-called fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem.†   (source)
  • "It may be a fallacy," he said, "but it is shore-God useful.†   (source)
  • That was the fallacy of the death-bed repentance - penitence was the fruit of long training and discipline: fear wasn't enough.†   (source)
  • Collins had exposed the fallacy of modern aesthetics to me: "…. the whole argument from Significant Form stands or falls by volume.†   (source)
  • "That, my dear Kiki," he answered, his voice soft and distant, as if he were giving an answer, not to her, but to a thought of his own, "is one of our greatest common fallacies.†   (source)
  • Throughout his plays the acute social critics, the people who are not taken in by accepted fallacies, are buffoons, villains, lunatics or persons who are shamming insanity or are in a state of violent hysteria.†   (source)
  • …hat and the overalls—of his ancient curse, who had become the young man with a young man's potence yet was still that lonely child in his parchment-and-denim hairshirt, and your grandfather speaking the lame vain words, the specious and empty fallacies which we call comfort, thinking Better that he were dead, better that be had never lived then thinking what vain and empty recapitulation that would be to her if he were to say it, who doubtless had already said it, thought it, changing…†   (source)
  • "THE BASIC trouble with the modern world," said Ellsworth Toohey, "is the intellectual fallacy that freedom and compulsion are opposites.†   (source)
  • The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; that justice is not done now.†   (source)
  • When I tried to rid her soul of this gloomy fallacy, she suffered so terribly that my heart will never be quite at peace so long as I can remember that dreadful time!†   (source)
  • Now and then a reporter was present at one of his meetings, and the headlines (though they were not very large) indicated that George F. Babbitt had addressed Cheering Throng, and Distinguished Man of Affairs had pointed out the Fallacies of Doane.†   (source)
  • When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.†   (source)
  • Whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by the familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them, of moving on to a new place, and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil.†   (source)
  • THE FALLACY OF SUCCESS.†   (source)
  • …the picture post-card which Mrs. Dawson had sent to Mrs. Cass from Pasadena, showing roses growing right outdoors in February, the change in time on No. 4, the reckless way Dr. Gould always drove his auto, the reckless way almost all these people drove their autos, the fallacy of supposing that these socialists could carry on a government for as much as six months if they ever did have a chance to try out their theories, and the crazy way in which Carol jumped from subject to subject.†   (source)
  • The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only possible line of action—the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army demanded—namely, simply to follow the enemy up.†   (source)
  • He bethought himself of course that it had been a small kindness to his father to wish that, of the two, the active rather than the passive party should know the felt wound; he remembered that the old man had always treated his own forecast of an early end as a clever fallacy, which he should be delighted to discredit so far as he might by dying first.†   (source)
  • He exposed their risk and fallacy with his usual skill; and it was only after he had removed every impediment, in the shape of opposing advice, that he ventured to propose his own projects.†   (source)
  • It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription for a tombstone in St George's Churchyard: 'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN…†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it.†   (source)
  • It seemed an eminently appropriate thing to Godfrey, for reasons that were known only to himself; and by a common fallacy, he imagined the measure would be easy because he had private motives for desiring it.†   (source)
  • His life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows — I again allude to his wife — and if I should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning to night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an actual fact.†   (source)
  • It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that the barbarians are still far from us; for if there be some nations which allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are others who trample it themselves under their feet.†   (source)
  • Next to arms, eloquence offers the great avenue to popular favor, whether it be in civilized or savage life, and Rivenoak had succeeded, as so many have succeeded before him, quite as much by rendering fallacies acceptable to his listeners, as by any profound or learned expositions of truth, or the accuracy of his logic.†   (source)
  • Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained.†   (source)
  • At present, however, she neither taunted him with his fallacies nor pretended that her own confidence was justified; if she wore a mask it completely covered her face.†   (source)
  • She liked him too much to marry him, that was the truth; something assured her there was a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition—as he saw it—even though she mightn't put her very finest finger-point on it; and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with a tendency to criticise would be a peculiarly discreditable act.†   (source)
  • A new fallacy in politics spreads faster in the United States than anywhere else on earth, and so does a new fashion in hats, or a new revelation of God, or a new means of killing time, or a new metaphor or piece of slang.†   (source)
  • Until I know this sure uncertainty I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.†   (source)
  • There was in this scheme too much of fallacy to satisfy one who utterly detested every species of falshood or dishonesty: nor would he, indeed, have submitted to put it in practice, had he not been involved in a distressful situation, where he was obliged to be guilty of some dishonour, either to the one lady or the other; and surely the reader will allow, that every good principle, as well as love, pleaded strongly in favour of Sophia.†   (source)
  • And thus you see the laboured fallacy of the first Argument, to deceive such men as distinguish not between the Subordination of Actions in the way to the End; and the Subjection of Persons one to another in the administration of the Means.†   (source)
  • And the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh expedient of compulsion.†   (source)
  • Mr Jones expressed great gratitude to the lady for the kind intentions towards him which she had expressed, and indeed testified, by this proposal; but, besides intimating some diffidence of success from the lady's knowledge of his love to her niece, which had not been her case in regard to Mr Fitzpatrick, he said, he was afraid Miss Western would never agree to an imposition of this kind, as well from her utter detestation of all fallacy as from her avowed duty to her aunt.†   (source)
  • Are not these facts the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which has been employed against the branch of the federal government under consideration?†   (source)
  • But as the inventors of this fallacy have attempted to support it by certain LEGAL MAXIMS of interpretation, which they have perverted from their true meaning, it may not be wholly useless to explore the ground they have taken.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, it cannot be unknown to the authors of the fallacy themselves, that the British Constitution fixes no limit whatever to the discretion of the legislature, and that the American ties down the legislature to two years, as the longest admissible term.†   (source)
  • Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape?†   (source)
  • If the foregoing argument is a fallacy, certain it is that I am myself deceived by it, for it is, in my conception, one of those rare instances in which a political truth can be brought to the test of a mathematical demonstration.†   (source)
  • Attempts so extravagant as these to disfigure or, it might rather be said, to metamorphose the object, render it necessary to take an accurate view of its real nature and form: in order as well to ascertain its true aspect and genuine appearance, as to unmask the disingenuity and expose the fallacy of the counterfeit resemblances which have been so insidiously, as well as industriously, propagated.†   (source)
  • Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as most of the popular governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and even in modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no example is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle.†   (source)
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