Quotes About Argument

What we need," he wrote, "is to turn out of colleges young men with ardent convictions on the side of right; not young men who can make a good argument for either right or wrong, as their interest bids them.

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense

Poor Hayduke: won all his arguments but lost his immortal soul.

To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he's a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic.

Who shall argue with the most stubborn of all bigotries, — the fanaticism of unbelief?

Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.

And one way the Aristotelian philosopher of nature might defend the reality of change against his rivals is precisely by appealing to the nature of the material reality that both sides affirm, and arguing that it entails the possibility of change.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Answer a fool according to his folly.

When you're arguing with a fool, make sure he isn't doing the same thing.

Don't argue with an 18-wheeler.

Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth.

It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership.

I needed to be reminded, when I caught myself deep in a years-old argument with my husband, alone and furious on the mostly empty midday subway, that he had been real—that my unhappiness was not only some chemical dysfunction of mine.

They spoke of training public speakers under five traditional headings: inventio, seeking out ideas or lines of argument; collocatio, structure and organization; elocutio, diction and style; actio, physical delivery; and memoria, memory (speeches could last for hours and as they were spoken not read they had to be learned by heart).

There were three main new schools of thought: the Epicureans, the Stoics and the Sceptics. On the whole, if an Epicurean said one thing, a Stoic would say the opposite and a Sceptic would refuse to commit himself either way.

There are some people who argue that we are too sensitive these days, that because we're so afraid of causing offence, we no longer engage in any serious sort of argument at all. But that's how it is. It's why political chat-shows on television have become so very boring. There are narrow lines between which all public conversations have to take place and even a single poorly chosen word can bring all sorts of trouble down on

Alex listened as the two men argued, neither really listening to what the other had to say. So this was how the government worked!

There are some people who argue that we are too sensitive these days, that because we're so afraid of causing offence, we no longer engage in any serious sort of argument at all. But that's how it is. It's why political chat-shows on television have become so very boring.

There are some people who argue that we are too sensitive these days, that because we're so afraid of causing offence, we no longer engage in any serious sort of argument at all. But that's how it is. It's why political chat-shows on television have become so very boring. There are narrow lines between which all public conversations have to take place and even a single poorly chosen word can bring all sorts of trouble down on your head.

go? We argued. I told him it was a fait accompli.

The Cold War provided justification for a larger peacetime military, since we were never really at peace, or so the argument went.

My father always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted, providing I was happy. He wanted me to go to school, but because I never wanted to, it was the only thing we argued about.

Writers should provoke disagreement.