Quotes About Debate

John Kerry doesn't think in terms of black-and-white. He's all gray, and he looks at all sides of the issues. That makes people think he likes to be devil's advocate. Whatever you say, he'll challenge you on.

I like disagreement because it forces both sides to question their own opinions and why they feel that way.

It's almost impossible to have a constructive conversation about health-care reform in Arkansas without passions rising and folks taking sides.

The issue of immigration is one of the most complex and politically difficult issues because there is so much passion on all sides.

People have debated both sides of the Liefeld influence, good and bad, and I maintain the sales and the results of that time bear out that people love that stuff.

If you listen to Donald Trump speak on almost any given issue, you will hear him take both sides of that issue - in the same sentence, sometimes. It's very, very hard to pin him down in any specific way.

From the day I was elected, I began focusing on governing the best way I know how - transparently, openly, and in a way that encourages debate, dialogue and discussion on all sides of an issue.

You cannot avoid controversy in this day and age - you really only can pick sides.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

Rather than negotiating yet another continuing resolution at the last minute, the appropriations process should work as it was originally designed, with appropriations bills passing the House and the Senate and being signed into law by the president, after robust debate, with a process for amendments.

As you look around the country there are still a significant number of states where their whole school debate is over school funding and we've been focused on the quality debate for most of the '90s.

Despite the hours spent debating different models of general education, the choices faculties make rarely lead to any significant difference in the cognitive development of undergraduates.

There's no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator.

When 'The Bell Curve' came out, I'd have lectures with lots of people chanting and picketing with signs, but it was always within the confines of the event and I was eventually able to speak.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

I have always said that the debate about who should play in goal is part of the game, but I never play in order to silence anyone.

Debate about the causes and consequences of climate change and the policy positions taken in response to it should be encouraged, not silenced.

I am, quite clearly, no fan of PETA or its way of thinking - but that doesn't mean that I want the group to be silenced. Instead, I have simply done what we all are supposed to have the right to do in this country: to use my own speech to counter what I disagreed with, rather than to move to silence it.

One thing you can say about nuclear power: the people who believe it is the silver bullet for America's energy problems never give up.

I completely understand why people are concerned about immigration. There's no silver bullet, no one thing you can do to suddenly deal with all the problems and concerns with immigration, and that includes leaving the E.U.

I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility.

Philiosophers like Hume and Descartes and Hobbes saw things similarly. They thought that mental images and ideas were actually the same thing. There are those today that dispute that, and lots of debates about how the mind works, but for me it's simple: Mental images, for most of us, are central in inventive and creative thinking.

Are Simon & Garfunkel cool, or are they just really uncool? I can't decide.