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The indispensability argument says (roughly) that if you have ample reason to accept an empirical scientific theory that makes indispensable use of mathematics, and that theory entails that numbers exist, then you have ample reason to accept that numbers exist. The argument affirms the antecedent of this conditional, and concludes that you have ample reason to believe that numbers exist. What is striking about this argument is that it seems to show that the empirical reasons that suffice for accepting a scientific theory also suffice for accepting a metaphysical claim.
Elliott SoberNever Get Into An Argument With A Customer. If You Win The Argument You Will Almost Invariably Lose The Sale. And I Don't Like Your Chances For A Sale If You Lose The Argument Either.
David ForemanIt depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda.
Jello BiafraEuclid 's manner of exposition, progressing relentlessly from the data to the unknown and from the hypothesis to the conclusion, is perfect for checking the argument in detail but far from being perfect for making understandable the main line of the argument.
George PolyaArgument closes off the doors of the senses. It always masks violence. Continued too long, argument always leads to violence.
Frank HerbertIf I'm in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person's side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument.
Christopher HitchensThe argument about zoning and the presidency of Nigeria is like the philosophical argument of the egg or the hen. Who is older through the evolutionary process, who came first?
Goodluck JonathanThe [first] argument asserts the non-existence of motion on the ground that that which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.
Zeno of EleaYou see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.
Neal ShustermanDuring the sole argument we had when [Chelsea] was in high school, the subject of which I don't even remember, I looked at her and said, 'As long as you're in this house, being president is my second most important job'.
William J. ClintonThe art of arguing is the art of living. We argue because we must, because life emends it, because, in the end, life itself is but an argument.
Gerry SpenceObstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate.
Deborah TannenI followed his argument with the blank uneasiness which one might feel in the presence of a logical lunatic.
Victor SergeI am also full of admiration for Chelsea Manning [formerly PFC Bradley Manning]. Regardless of which side of the argument you're on, he stood up for something he felt wasn't right. That was an extraordinarily brave thing to do, and I think he was unfairly punished for it. It's a really big deal what he did, and he did it for the betterment of all us, including the soldiers on the ground, as well as the civilians caught up in those conflicts.
Benedict CumberbatchThe argument that it is difficult to find women is complete BS. Any bank will tell you that the No. 1 employee they lose the most money on is the mid-tier female they bring on when they are 22 who leaves in her mid to late 30s. These are women they spend a ton of money training, and a ton of money attracting and hiring. And then they lose them. And they lose them for many reasons. They're going to other sectors, other industries. So for us in the financial-services world to say we can't find women is ridiculous. They are out there. We've done it here at Anthemis.
Amy NauiokasThe zionist argument to justify Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine has no intelligent or legal basis in history.
Malcolm XMy wife and I have created our own language. We can be at a table with six other people and have an argument without anyone knowing. It doesn't even have to be out loud. It's bizarre.
Pete WentzEver argue with a female and, in the middle of the argument, you no longer feel safe because of her actions? She may start pacing back and forth real fast, breathing out her nose. You know what my girl do? When she get mad, she start talking in the third person. That's scary as hell because that's her way of telling me that from this point on, she is not responsible for none of her actions.
Kevin HartMy argument would be that I don't think there is much that's genuinely political art that is good art.
Thom YorkeI keep hearing the argument that some things are constitutional while other things are not. The idea is that we should be in favor of all the things that were decided over 200 years ago by a bunch of slave-owning cross-dressers who pooped in holes.
Scott AdamsIt is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption.
H. Rider HaggardAfter months of lies, the president [Bill Clinton] has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reason. The suspicion some people have about the president's motives in this attack is itself a powerful argument for impeachment.
Dick ArmeyMy book is going to be called Against Empathy, which may give you a feeling for where my argument is going to go. Whenever I talk about this, I have to begin in the most boring of all possible ways: by defining my terms. By "empathy," some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.
Paul BloomThe only thing going on is the progression of words and sentences across page after page and so suddenly we see this immersive kind of very attentive thinking, whether you are paying attention to a story or to an argument, or whatever. And what we know about the brain is the brain adapts to these types of tools.
Nicholas G. CarrI don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.
John BrownConservatives have long argued, correctly, that 'fine-tuning' the economy is a chimera, but that argument seems to have disappeared from the conservative handbook.
Alex TabarrokThe words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant of the background of our planning...they did not realize that it was ridiculous to speak of timing when the clock of history showed that the Negro had already suffered one hundred years of delay.
Martin Luther King, Jr.As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
Ben JonsonPainting is the same kind of problem as unfolding a long, sustained interlocked argument... It is a proposition commanded by a single unity of conception.
Winston ChurchillYes, 85 percent of the art you see isn't any good. But everyone has a different opinion about which 85 percent is bad. That in turn creates fantastically unstable interplay and argument.
Jerry SaltzIf in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.
Walter Savage LandorAlmighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.
Thomas JeffersonI am caught in a terrific bind of characterologically and rationally needing to think in the most comprehensive terms possible, forming a continuous system of argument with a gradient that runs from concrete to abstract, and unfortunately being caught also in a culture in which hardly anyone seems capable of applying himself to understand such a demanding form of argumentation.
Kenny SmithSome men at the approach of a dispute neigh like horses. Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is doing. Some talkers excel in the precision with which they formulate their thoughts, so that you get from them somewhat to remember; others lay criticism asleep by a charm. Especially women use words that are not words,--as steps in a dance are not steps,--but reproduce the genius of that they speak of; as the sound of some bells makes us think of the bell merely, whilst the church chimes in the distance bring the church and its serious memories before us.
Ralph Waldo EmersonMy argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
C. S. LewisArithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.
PlatoPreserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.
Kevin KellyEverybody's angry with me because, apparently, I outed my cousin during an argument over a turkey leg. My cousin goes, 'You had the last leg.' I was like, 'You're gay.
Dov DavidoffThe strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.
Steven PinkerMy brother used to say that when you deal with women, it's difficult to remove emotions from an argument. I never really knew what he meant. Then I read an article that said when it comes to emotion and logic, men's and women's brains are different - my brother was right! Women are very mysterious, but that's part of their joy.
Nathan Fillion