Source: The Devil's Dictionary
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction
“This identity is neither coincidental nor self-evident.”
Commenting that his reconstruction of the history of text of the Bible agrees with that produced by other methods.
"Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts" (Biblica, 48 (1967), pp.243-290)
“We unite behind a declaration of self-evident truth.”
BBC News, ' Scottish independence: One million Scots urged to sign 'yes' declaration http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-18162832' (25 May 2012).
Context: We unite behind a declaration of self-evident truth. The people who live in Scotland are best placed to make the decisions that affect Scotland. We want a Scotland that's greener, that's fairer and more prosperous. We realise that the power of an independent Scotland is necessary to achieve these great ends... By the time we enter the referendum campaign in autumn 2014, our intention is to have one million Scots who have signed the independence for Scotland declaration. Friends, if we achieve that, then we shall win an independent Scotland.
"The Protestant Mystics", p. 51
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
“There is no idea so obscure that someone could not come to regard it as self-evident.”
Source: The Alienation of Reason (1966), Chapter Seven, Pragmatism and Positivism, p. 156
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”
First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, [July, 19-20, 1848]. Declaration of Sentiments.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all P-brains are created equal.”
The Universe in a Nutshell (2001)
Source: Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943), IV
Context: For Shaw as for Goethe, the obligation to strive is a primary feeling: reason initiates nothing and would stop everything. Its use is to come after the fact and devise helpful justification of action. Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless. There is, Shaw reminds us, no argument in behalf of moral conduct which would not equally well support immoral. But it is clearly impossible (and immoral) to exact moral conduct, cultivation, and grace from those whom circumstances force to lead sub-human lives. Therefore society must be reformed.
