Quotes About Debate

Pretending to others that your opponents are stupid may sometimes be a sensible tactic. Believing that they are is usually a serious mistake.

The men sit around getting fat and arguing with each other about something they call "philosophy" - most of which is pure nonsense.

The American Conversation is an argument, after all, and way worse than our fear of error or anarchy or Gomorrahl decadence is our fear of theocracy or autocracy or any ideology whose project is not to argue or persuade but to adjourn the whole debate sine die. It's this logic (and perhaps this alone) that keeps protofascism or royalism or Maoism or any sort of really dire extremism from achieving mainstream legitimacy in US politics

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man.

Tengo por costumbre no insultar. Respetar a los adversarios engrandece las propias opiniones. En cambio el que disminuye al adversario, disminuye la importancia de su propia opinión ¿Qué gracia tendría tener la razón contra unos necios? lo grande es tener la razón contra gente seria, brillante, pero equivocada.

Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.

What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion Make yourselves scabs?

A leaner action rend us. What's amiss, May it be gently heard. When we debate Our trivial difference loud, we do commit Murther in healing wounds.

In debate, especially when the dispute is hot and supercharged and freighted with ill will, I have always been the flabbiest of contenders. My voice breaks, becomes shrill; I sweat. I get a sloppy half-grin on my face. Worse, my mind wanders and then takes flight while the logic I possess in fair measure under more placid circumstances abandons my brain like an ungrateful urchin.

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their merits

In 1933 the students of the Oxford Union, under the inspiration of a Mr. Joad, passed their ever-shameful resolution, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.

Quit murdering and start arguing.

The great impediment to action is not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action.'—PERICLES.

But the arguments we had over free will and monads, while heated, were never as combatative as the ones we had over our marriage. I knew I was in trouble when, in one philosophical discussion, Harlene proved I didn't exist.

Left wing, right wing, chicken wing.

People are always saying the humanities are dead so it's strange how many conferences there are. (p. 203-204)

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.

Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.

The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.

What democracy requires is vigorous public debate, not information. Of course, it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated only bys debate. We do not know what we need to know until we ask the right questions, and we can identify the right questions only by subjecting our own ideas about the world to the test of public controversy.

The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing.

The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.

There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it