Quotes About Debate

I'm not in favor of any amnesty whatsoever.

My opinion is that politicians should be humble in the face of history. And whenever history is a matter of debate, it should be left in the hands of historians and experts.

Whenever someone says to me, 'Are you for or against Common Core,' the first question I ask is, 'What do you think Common Core is?' You will get a different answer from every single person. You will literally get a different answer.

Whenever a liberal begins a statement with 'I don't know which is more frightening', you know the answer is going to be pretty clear.

Whenever the debate moves on to hard numbers - our deficit with Europe, our surplus with the rest of the world, our Brussels budget contributions, the tiny part of our economy dependent on sales to the EU, the vast part subjected to EU regulation - Euro-enthusiasts quickly shift their ground and start harrumphing about influence.

Whenever you discuss politics, it is always better to use individual names rather then the term neocon.

Whenever I go on a show with a comedian I just counter punch.

Freedom rings where opinions clash.

Nonfiction, to me, feels like an argument, whereas a novel is like a series of questions.

Uncle Matheson and my father would frequently argue long into the night about politics. Like me, he was all about socialism, togetherness and investing in people, whereas Matheson, to this day, holds very strong conservative views.

Politics is about divisions. Wherever you come in on the subject, there are divisions.

Only fools argue whether to eat meat or not. They don't understand truth, nor do they meditate on it. Who can define what is meat and what is plant? Who knows where the sin lies, being a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian?

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

You've never seen me debate anybody. On anything. Ever. My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another. What the laws of physics say.

Academics lack perspective. In a debate on whether the world is round, they would argue, 'No,' because it's an oblate spheroid. They suffer from 'the curse of knowledge': the inability to imagine what it's like not to know something that they know.

One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.

I always thought Jon Stewart was an extremely good surgeon with his scalpel. He would have Republicans on who, I guess, were unclear about what Stewart was up to, and while Jon Stewart was being nice, he was building a case for drowning them.

CCTV is seen either as a symbol of Orwellian dystopia or a technology that will lead to crime-free streets and civil behaviour. While arguments continue, there is very little solid data in the public domain about the costs, quantity and effectiveness of surveillance.

I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.

Schools should bring back the whip.

You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.

Outside Westminster, political debate must seem like white noise that bears little relevance to people's everyday lives. But political choices made by the governments we elect have a real impact on how we live.

On immigration, there are a lot of hurdles before anything arrives at the White House.

Often times, political games prevent senators from even beginning to debate some of the most important issues.