John le Carre

The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.

English Writer

George Herbert Mead

Our specious present as such is very short. We do, however, experience passing events; part of the process of the passage of events is directly there in our experience, including some of the past and some of the future.

American Philosopher

Zadie Smith

English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.

British Novelist

Ephraim Mirvis

Holocaust denial, once the preserve of fringe conspiracy theorists, has mutated into Holocaust obfuscation, equivocation, and specious comparison on a larger scale than ever.

South African Clergyman

H. W. Brands

A president can start a war under relatively specious circumstances, and once American soldiers are under fire, Americans will support the soldiers and support the president.

American Historian

Niccolo Machiavelli

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

Italian Writer

Edward Young

One to destroy, is murder by the law; and gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; to murder thousands, takes a specious name, 'War's glorious art', and gives immortal fame.

English Poet

Maya Wiley

Attacking the ability of black people to govern through specious claims that we are a danger to white people is nothing short of disgraceful.

Jessica Savitch

When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.

American Journalist

Mehdi Hasan

To pretend that there is no such thing as the Muslim world is specious, self-deluding, and - frankly - plain silly.

British Journalist

Specious things seem right at first, but don't hold up to scrutiny.

Hidden Flaws

Use 'specious' when something intentionally tries to deceive.

Not Trustworthy

'Specious' is often used to criticize arguments or ideas.

Critique Tool

 And this distinction between virtual and real is specious because guess what -- that actually happened to me once when I was a child, and so that tweet brought up that trauma, and I had to do work on that.