Argumentum Ad Quotes & Sayings

The idea that a large group of people believing in something automatically makes it true is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum. — Armin Navabi

Just as [he] had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter ... — Orson Scott Card

Since the topic is science, the non scientists don't get a vote. We shouldn't decide everything by polling the masses. This is the fallacy called Argumentum Ad Numerum, the idea that something is true because great number believe it, as in EAT SHIT, twenty trillions flies can't be wrong! — Bill Maher

The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. — Hilma Wolitzer

The biggest sin in Satanism is not murder, nor is it kindness. It is stupidity. — Marilyn Manson

Those who are guilty of the argumentum ad ignorantiam profess belief in something because its opposite cannot be proved ... In the realm where "prejudice" is now most an issue, it normally takes a form like this: you cannot prove by the method of statistics and quantitative measurement that men are not equal. Therefore all men are equal ... You cannot prove again by the methods of science that one culture is higher than another. Therefore the culture of the Digger Indians is just a good as that of Muncie, Indiana, or thirteenth-century France. — Richard M. Weaver

Offering thanks in the midst of tragedy is an American tradition, . even during a bloody Civil War. — Abraham Lincoln

I think Yelena Akhtiorskaya is a genius. What she manages to do, linguistically and emotionally, in the span of a single sentence, is astonishing. — Keith Gessen

Yes, I know," Lionel interrupted. "Well, I shall read them all. I love to read. I am so glad I learned to read. — E. Nesbit

We have forfeited our calling for the simple reason that we've ignored the God who says that the 'possible' is never bound by the 'probable,' and instead we've dutifully heeded the god of fear that incessantly says the 'possible' is anything but 'probable. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

It would be impious, I suppose, to suggest that, in his final divine judgment of creatures, God will judge himself; but one must hold that by that judgment God truly will disclose himself (which, of course, is to say the same thing, in a more hushed and reverential voice).

Even Paul asks, in the tortured, conditional voice of Romans 9, whether there might be vessels of wrath stored up solely for destruction only because he trusts that there are not, that instead all are bound in disobedience only so that God might prove himself just by showing mercy on all.

The argumentum ad baculum is a terrifying specter, momentarily conjured up only so as to be immediately chased away by a decisive, radiant argumentum ad caritatem.

(from Radical Orthodoxy 3.1 (2015): 1-17) — David Bentley Hart

When is death not within ourselves? ... Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and alseep, young and old. — Heraclitus

Anything to do with persuasion is rhetoric, right down to the argumentum ad baculum, which means threatening somebody with a stick until they agree with you. — Mark Forsyth

How is the newcomer to deal with Rome? What is one to make of this marble rubble, this milk of wolves, this blood of Caesars, this sunrise of Renaissance, this baroquery of blown stone, this warm hive of Italians, this antipasto of civilization? — Shana Alexander