Quotes About Debate

Books are weapons in the war of ideas.

A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue - which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands.

There's always something to say on both sides, even when one's a wrong side. That's what makes it all so tiresome-makes you wish you were dead. Take the right side and stick to that.

It's astonishing how well the worse reason looks when you try to make it appear the better.

Those who champion democracy, but make a fetish of never accepting anything they don't agree with -- what advantage do they see in democracy?

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

Hereticorum sententias prodidisse est superasse—to have expounded the doctrines of heretics is to have overcome them, saith Hieron. Unfold them, or bring them and the word face to face, and, like Cain, they hang down their head; they are put to shame.

Do we not live in a time when the church is turned into a sophister's school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath been that the most precious truths of the gospel are lost already to many.

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.

Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide open, and that… may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

There is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.

We're not arguing. We're discussing." "You're a lawyer; you don't know the difference. I'm arguing.

William Lane Craig

Premise The steps of an argument that lead to the conclusion are called the premises of the argument.

Reductio ad absurdum, or reduction to absurdity, is a form of argument that proves a statement by demonstrating that its opposite is absurd.

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

His face looked like an argument you couldn't win.

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.

Our country's political discourse and debate are enriched by discussions of the political implications of our faith traditions, whether they are taking place in our communities, at our dinner tables, or in our places of worship.