Popular quotes about Argument! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals.
Milton FriedmanThe argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.
John MajorNever 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 ForemanIf Rand Paul is going to go anywhere, he is going to have to expand it beyond merely this argument about where we put troops and don`t put troops and make it both a generational argument and a change argument. And he`s got a chance to do that.
Howard FinemanHere is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley - updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.
Edward Robert HarrisonAny work of science, no matter what its point of departure, cannot become fully convincing until it crosses the boundary between the theoretical and the experimental: Experimentation must give way to argument, and argument must have recourse to experimentation.
Gaston BachelardSimplicity is all. Simple logic, simple arguments, simple visual images. If you can't reduce your argument to a few crisp words and phrases, there's something wrong with your argument. There's nothing long-winded about 'Libertรฉ, รฉgalitรฉ, fraternitรฉ'.
Maurice SaatchiAccording to a new study, 63% of men surveyed said they like to settle an argument by having sex. The other 37% of the men said they would never want to get into an argument with those men.
Jay LenoThe strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.
Thomas Sowell[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.
H. L. MenckenI'm not going to get in to an argument with anyone about the relative merits of Judaism and Christianity, and what it means for a Jewish kid to be a Christian - I'm just not interested in that argument.
T Bone BurnettGeorge W. Bush bought the election - period. End of story. There is no argument. You can try to come up with any argument you can, but there is none.
Gary ColemanIf we're not there making the argument then the cultural gulf that Republicans try to exploit saying, "Ah, these city slickers: they're all looking down on you, they don't care about you. They're just trying to help out their various special interest constituencies," that argument ends up being successful.
Barack ObamaI dropped out of high school when I was 16, after I had a huge argument with my English teacher over the meaning of the word 'existentialism.'
Craig FergusonBut to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that permits no argument, turned or dropped or risen is one able to see all that one could not have seen from any other place.
James A. BaldwinThe [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 EleaIt is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.
Eliezer YudkowskyYou can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past. They lived in the present. It is their present, not our present, and they don't know how it's going to come out. They weren't just like we are because they lived in that very different time. You can't understand them if you don't understand how they perceived reality.
David McCulloughGiven the difficulty of resisting such temptations over the longer run, a proper concern for the welfare of congressional souls may well be the ultimate argument in favor of term limitations.
James L. BuckleyYou 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 ShustermanI now add, farther, that the apostles argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary.
Jonathan MayhewIn too many marriage conflicts, we work too hard at winning the argument and too little at winning the heart.
Matt ChandlerRational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.
Alister E. McGrathHe who knows only his own side of the case (argument) knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion
John Stuart MillNothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. -T-Shirt
Darynda JonesA 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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Lady Placida smiled. โHistory seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title.โ โMany women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.โ Lady Placida laughed. โTrue enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change.โ She offered her hands. โIt is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder.
Jim ButcherThe form of religion was always a trivial matter to me. ... The pageantry of the Roman Church that first mothered and nurtured me touches me to this day. I love the Protestant prayers of the English Church. And I love the stern and knotty argument, the sermon with heads and sequences, of the New England Congregationalist. For this catholicity Catholics have upbraided me, churchmen rebuked me, and dissenters denied that I had any religion at all.
Mary CatherwoodFor I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one as well as Child did.
William JamesThe bible of cooking. The all-time argument ender. Early in my cooking career, I wielded my Larousse like a weapon and it never let me down.
Anthony BourdainTo sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.
Judith MartinFew progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.
Eric AltermanEvery argument that Margaret Thatcher ever made internationally didn't have a great deal to do with her contempt for Communism - she never really got into that. What she talked about was giving freedom to tens of millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe. She was an inspirational leader when it came to discussing her belief in freedom. More visceral and moral.
Brian MulroneyNothing will do more damage to the pro-European movement than giving room to the suspicion that we have something to hide, that we do not have the โcojonesโ to carry our argument to the people.
Nick CleggNo argument can persuade me to like oysters if I do not like them. In other words, the disturbing thing about matters of taste is that they are not communicable.
Hannah ArendtVery often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience.
Christopher HitchensI think the way that I delivered my request for acting was undeniable, and I think that I was blessed enough to have parents who saw it as something that there was no argument about. For that, I will always be grateful.
Nina AriandaA criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.
Clifford IrvingThere is indeed something deeply wrong with a person who lacks principles, who has no moral core. There are, likewise, certainly values that brook no compromise, and I would count among them integrity, fairness, and the avoidance of cruelty. But I have never accepted the argument that principle is compromised by judging each situation on its own merits, with due appreciation of the idiosyncrasy of human motivation and fallibility.
SoniaA strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.
Edgar Allan PoeHere is how you know someone has had a good idea: Other people freely admit to their friends that said idea has changed their lives. Most people today will grant that fire and the wheel are the big two. After that, any attempts to rank the greatest ideas of all time are going to draw lots of argument. Youโll have zealots pimping this god or that on the one hand, scientists pimping Darwin on the other, and then practical people pointing at written language and saying, look, fellas, the reason those ideas have gone viral is because someone figured out how to write them down.
Kevin HearneAs a Democrat, one of the things that frustrates me the most is there are a lot of times we just don't get in the fight. We ask pretty please if we can have things or we make the argument for why it is the best thing to do, and then wait patiently for the other side to agree to come along. We negotiate. We start our opening position by negotiating.
Elizabeth WarrenWhatever advantages may have arisen, in the past, out of the existence of a specially favored and highly privileged aristocracy, it is clear to me that today no argument can stand that supports unequal opportunity or any intrinsic disqualification for sharing in the whole of life.
Margaret MeadArtists used to argue about art for art's sake versus social realism etc, and now it's like the most dominate argument is related to "art for the market's sake." It's a necessity, somewhat, for some people.
Lee KleinTom Reganโs now classic Case for Animal Rights blends careful argument with intense moral concern. For two decades, where Regan has been taken seriously, animals have been better off and people have become better persons. This new edition is a welcome sign of this influence continuing.
Holmes Rolston III