Popular quotes about Argument! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
I think, the argument sometimes that I've had with folks who are much more interested in sort of race-specific programs is less an argument about what is practically achievable and sometimes maybe more an argument of "We want society to see what's happened, and internalize it, and answer it in demonstrable ways." And those impulses I very much understand.
Barack ObamaNever 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 ForemanI've never won an argument with my wife; and the only time I thought I had I found out the argument wasn't over yet.
Jimmy CarterI did a film about child abuse with the great producer-director Richard Donner, Radio Flyer. Again, I was replacing somebody, but Lorraine Bracco was in it, and they wanted me as the cop in the thing to fall in love with Lorraine, but I said I wouldn't. I mean, I'm a cop, and she's ignoring that her kids are being beaten up by their stepfather. And we had an argument... well, not an argument, but a discussion about it. I said, "I just don't feel right. It's like you're taking everything away from the reality of the movie. Aren't you kind of idealizing this a little bit?
John HeardWhat is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.
Peter SingerIt's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.
John IrvingPublic discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.
Deborah TannenFighting with the media almost always is a mistake. You can't win the argument, the media has the last word, and most times your argument is not justified.
Roger AilesPascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.
Antony FlewCrime can be a unifying argument - not an argument that people use as a code for us vs. them.
Charles SchumerNever [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.
Thomas JeffersonThere are some things fundamentally off about the stance of the book. And maybe that's okay; maybe every book is flawed, and great books, as flawed as they might be, articulate a moral argument that the reader then carries forward. The critique to this model is, of course, to ask: Should a book be ever so perfect that you come out of it with complete moral agreement that can be sustained?
George SaundersArgument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.
Gertrude SteinThere's an argument that maybe [The Grinder] was better suited for streaming or cable. I don't know. I still like to think there's a place for smart, subversive, original comedies on networks.
Rob LoweControversial issues are always more interesting but I don't create material about a subject I have opinion on just because it's controversial. The most fun is having a point of view that the audience is generally against and presenting an argument that challenges their thinking.
Doug StanhopeWhen I have an argument with someone, even with someone I am not very close with, I can't sleep at night thinking about it. It's terrible. But I still manage speak out frankly because I have also been gifted with the ability to read people. I can sense when they start to get irritated with me, and then, I shift.
Hans Rosling[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'd love if people relearned the lessons of the 20th century all over again. Which is to say this country progressed economically and socially when we had a better balance between capital and labor. Neither capital or labor won every argument. The battle between the two created economic tension, and transformed the working class into the middle class, and grew the economy.
David SimonMy argument has always been that this is not an anti-Bush film, it's a pro-democracy film. And if George W.Bush comes out on the wrong side of democracy, that's his problem.
John SaylesIf one is talking to a finance minister of a poor country, moral arguments tend not to get very far. But if you can argue that their country is going to grow 2 percent faster per year if they can just harness the power of the female half of the population more effectively, that is an argument they consider.
Nicholas D. KristofIn general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own shortcomings and of the intelligence of their opponents, so that they would not lose out in reasoned argument or be taken by surprise by their quick-witted opponents, they boldly moved into action. Their enemies,on the contrary, contemptuous and confident in their ability to anticipate, thought there was no need to take by action what they could win by their brains.
ThucydidesI followed his argument with the blank uneasiness which one might feel in the presence of a logical lunatic.
Victor SergeThe advent of DNA testing, and the number of convictions thrown out, has confirmed that we've put LOTS of innocent people to death. There need not be any other argument against death penalty.
Gene WeingartenI 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 classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification-judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind-essentially sum up the aim and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.
Karl PearsonTalk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.
Lewis H. LaphamWe are afraid. But fear confirms life and identifies the source of every successful argument - ourselves.
Gerry SpenceAs parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.
Thomas PaineDon't start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don't. They'll make you look like chopped liver.
Harlan EllisonI gave someone a perverse argument not so long ago about why advertising is better than movies. You want to hear it? Movies operate from a really disingenuous premise, that people are heroes. I know a lot of people and have had an opportunity over the years to observe them. Are they heroes...? Let's put it this way. Advertising tries something simpler and more believable: Products as heroes. I guess the idea is: When all else fails, put your faith in conditioner.
Errol MorrisIf one is going to change the definition of marriage to be, quote, 'same sex,' then there is absolutely no valid argument constitutionally or rhetorically you can make against multiple people getting married. These are radical social changes.
Gary BauerNever for a moment believe that the great body of the citizens of any State or States can deliberately intend to do wrong. They may, under the influence of temporary excitement or misguided opinions, commit mistakes; they may be misled for a time by the suggestions of self-interest; but in a community so enlightened and patriotic as the people of the United States argument will soon make them sensible of their errors, and when convinced they will be ready to repair them.
Andrew JacksonThe 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. CarrThere are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument.
Thomas GrayIn my work, and in my psyche, there's some very sentimental, traditional, conventional side that's always in argument with a more radical, sarcastic side. Some of my stories are really sentimental, but they're layered over with weird, satirical stuff.
George SaundersMatt 13:57. Then Jesus told them, 'A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.' The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
George CarlinThe key that opens that door is proving to the American public that illegal immigration is under control. And at this point, that argument cannot be made because it is not true, it is not under control.
Marco RubioThe fact that the most powerful and significant connections in our lives are (at the time) invisible to us seems to me a compelling argument for religious reverence rather than skeptical empiricism as a response to life's meaning.
David Foster WallaceI even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.
Antonin ScaliaDisagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.
Daniel J. BoorstinYou can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.
Dale CarnegieManagersโ typical response to my argument about free time is, โThatโs all well and good, but there are things I have to do.โ Yet we waste so much time in unproductive activityโit takes an enormous effort on the part of the leader to keep free time for the truly important things.
Dov FrohmanThe sad fact is that today most of the heads of big businesses in America have become so confused or intimidated that, so far from carrying the free market to argument to the enemy, they fail to defend themselves adequately even when attacked.
Henry HazlittPainting 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 ChurchillA 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 Irving