Quotes About Debate

Logic is in the eye of the logician.

But controversy is a teacher.

Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts. As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself. Campaign season is the only time of public debate about what we want for the future. It can change consciousness even more than who gets elected.

But controversy is a teacher. The

Gegner glauben uns zu wiederlegen, wenn sie ihre meinung wiederholen und auf die unsrige nicht achten.

Silence," Che Guevara told us, "is argument carried on by other means.

The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.

You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong—to his own satisfaction.

The term congressional hearing is an oxymoron. No congressional hearing is ever called to gather information. Rather, it is an exercise designed strictly for posturing, by people who have already made up their minds, looking for ammunition to support their positions.

At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

And perhaps you can stay longer next time. I sometimes miss the debate my students challenged me with when they stopped being scared of me and before they were mature enough to realize that those who are older may know something after all.

Propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins.

Do you really think you are going to change anyone's mind?

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus.

if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.

Encourage disagreement during the process.

Cultivating debate, argument, dialogue, and disagreement—all this takes time, resulting in a slower decision-making process than just issuing an executive order. But it also increases the probability of choosing a wise course of action.

Indeed, one of the crucial elements in taking a company from good to great is somewhat paradoxical. You need executives, on the one hand, who argue and debate—sometimes violently—in pursuit of the best answers, yet, on the other hand, who unify fully behind a decision, regardless of parochial interests.

The Selfish Gene—he set off decades of debate by declaring: "We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

The First Amendment is the First Amendment for a reason - our most cherished right. But it often creates muddy and uncomfortable situations, ones that are the source of great drama and national self-reflection.

The 'anchor baby' thing needs to be fixed... Anchor babies are an unconstitutional declaration of citizenship to those born of non-Americans. It's wrong, and it's immoral.

From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions that don't seem to have an answer that everyone agrees on.

Open debate is our strongest tool in standing up to extremism. The far more dangerous avenue is to force extremist ideas underground, where they can fester without competition.