Quotes About Debate

We don't back down from controversy - we fan the fires. People think we go out of our way to create it, but we don't.

I think that the public debate that we had on the Iran deal was very important. That's probably one of the most consequential things most of us will ever vote on ; a nuclear arms control agreement with a mortal enemy. And the White House - despite all their efforts - failed miserably.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

I like debating policy. I never once attacked personally Secretary Clinton. I have found that when I have attacked people personally, that's been a stupid mistake on my part. And so whoever I have attacked personally, I apologize for.

Right now, as I'm typing this, some liberal somewhere is saying something unforgivable about Michelle Bachmann or Ann Coulter. I condemn you, whoever you are! But I'm not going to conduct a house-to-house search to find you.

There is no comparison between the two of them. The debate will always be there and you have to respect Cristiano. It would be foolish not to respect him. He is a great player. But whoever likes football will think Leo is the best.

The whole notion of pain, and how every individual experiences pain, is up for debate. We don't know how another person experiences pain - physical pain or psychic pain. Some of these clinics where assisted suicide or euthanasia is practiced, they call it 'weariness of life.'

To exist in an echo chamber and only talk to people with whom we agree is fruitless.

It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree.

When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.

One of the hallmarks of higher education and of democracy is the ability to converse with people with whom we disagree.

I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me.

Freedom of speech is freedom above all for those whose views you dislike most.

I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.

When Obama was first proposed as a presidential candidate in 2007, the nation failed to have a meaningful debate concerning the serious constitutional issue of electing someone whose father was not a U.S. citizen.

Everybody in the Middle East wants to explain why they're right.

Freedom of speech should be wide open as long as it doesn't incite violence.

Harvard is a wondrously tolerant climate for debate and exchange among a wide variety of thoughts, backgrounds, and beliefs, but the voice of religion on campus is largely inaudible.

If the great thing about the Internet is that it throws wide the doors of discussion to everyone, the bad thing about the Internet is that it throws wide the doors of discussion to everyone.

Saying what we think gives a wider range of conversation than saying what we know.

Victims of crime and the wider community deserve a grown-up debate on our criminal justice system and how we can make it work - for those within it and for those it protects.