Quotes About Debate

Arguing more loudly or strenuously or more articulately than your opponent simply reveals how annoying and obstinate you are.

Confrontational is when I pull my gun. Argumentative is when I pull the trigger.

It's getting harder to tell the difference between art and vandalism.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

Trump might have a mouth like an open sewer, but at least he says something.

People who say that there's a vote within the Republican Party that moves against immigrants is just factually not accurate.

If you try to discuss multiculturalism in the U.K., you're labeled a racist.

Obama had the wherewithal to muscle through an entire health care reorganization, right? Like it, don't like it, whatever.

I don't care that much about rote memorization. An old boyfriend of mine used to get into lacerating arguments with his parents over facts, and I used to watch on in mute astonishment. How could anyone actually argue about something that could be looked up?

Whether the earth was created in seven days or seven actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.

But for labor groups, there is no debate: Nafta hurt American jobs and household earnings.

I am not going to argue about whether I am a nasty guy.

The National Security Act of 1947 - which established the National Security Council - laid the foundation for a deliberate, multitiered process, managed by the national security adviser, to bring government agencies together to debate and decide policy.

Even before September 11, there was a debate in the administration about whether or not military force should be used to oust Saddam Hussein. You're not going to find one person in the top echelons of the foreign policy and national security establishment in the U.S. government who's going to say that Saddam Hussein should not be out of power.

Bulgakov and Roth understood that there is no real political ideology among decayed ruling elites. Political debate and ideological constructs for these elites are just so much absurdist theater, a cynical species of public spectacle and mass entertainment. These systems, like our own, are organized kleptocracies.

Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.

The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.

If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.

Did I ever think I might have been wrong? Yes, sometimes and briefly. But never because of the supposed majority against me.

I'm not as I was but at this present moment I have to say, I feel very envious of someone who's young and active and starting out in the argument. Just think of the extraordinary things that are waiting to be known

A terrible thing has now happened to religion. Except in the places where it can still enforce itself by fear superimposed on ignorance, it has become one opinion among many. It is forced to compete in the free market of ideas and, even when it strives to retain the old advantage of inculcating its teachings into children (for reasons that are too obvious to need underlining), it has to stand up in open debate and submit to free inquiry.

One indictment of the religious right is not that it is heartless – a tautology in any case – but that is brainless.

The 'pre-emption' versus 'prevention' debate may be a distinction without much difference. The important thing is to have it understood that the United States is absolutely serious. The jihadists have in the past bragged that America is too feeble and corrupt to fight. A lot is involved in disproving that delusion on their part.