Argument Quotes

• What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand still whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both.

  

  Alfred Denning, Baron Denning
  • Law
  • Argument
  • Side

• It is easier to silence scientific dissent by utilizing the politics of personal destruction, than to actually debate them on the merits of their arguments. That should tell you something about the global warming debate...there is none right now....it's either you believe, or you are to be discredited.

  

  Mike Thompson
  • Destruction
  • Easier
  • Warming

• You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

  

  Noam Chomsky
  • Violence
  • Need
  • Argument

• I tend to judge a piece of criticism by how smart I find the argument. This, I know,, is not how everyone does it.

  

  Michelle Dean
  • Smart
  • Criticism
  • Argument

• When you have an intense game, you're going to have arguments. I have no problem with it. I think it's healthy.

  

  Scott Brooks
  • Problem
  • Healthy
  • Argument

• Clear statement is argument.

  

  William Greenough Thayer Shedd
  • Argument
  • Statement

• The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers.

  

  Carroll Quigley
  • Party
  • Ideas
  • Policy

• It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.

  

  Thomas Nagel
  • Together
  • Natural
  • Explanation

• Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.

  

  Cass Sunstein
  • People
  • Sometimes
  • Argument

• Invariably, it is this for which I write: the joy ... of an argument firmly made, like a nail straightly driven, its head flush to the plank.

  

  George Will
  • Writing
  • Joy
  • Argument

• The argument that John F. Kennedy was a closet peacenik, ready to give up on what the Vietnamese call the 'American War' upon re-election, received its most farcical treatment in Oliver Stone's 'JFK.'

  

  Rick Perlstein
  • Argument
  • Treatment
  • Received

• I was with you, Mr. Scott—till I heard your argument.

  

  Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow
  • Argument

• The idea comes before the logical argument.

  

  Gerald Abrahams
  • Idea
  • Argument
  • Comes

• You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.

  

  Milton Friedman
  • Argument
  • Opponents

• Niagaras of beauty are flowing by untapped by ordinary consciousness. . . . Would that we could send robots who could film these psychedelic realities. . . . The presence of so much beauty is an argument to me that truth cannot be far away.

  

  Terence McKenna
  • Reality
  • Film
  • Consciousness

• If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

  

  William Godwin
  • Strong
  • Purpose
  • Weak

• Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.

  

  Richard Whately
  • Argument
  • Hungry
  • Table

• Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.

  

  Lois McMaster
  • People
  • Argument
  • Killing

• A lot of times, candidates for office, especially incumbents, seem to get drawn into their opponents' arguments, and fighting on their turf, because you want to defend yourself. That's wrong. Fight on your own turf. Make them come to you. Make them explain why they don't agree with your position. I think that a lot of times, too many liberals, progressives, lose because they're afraid to really stand up for what they believe in.

  

  Tom Harkin
  • Thinking
  • Fighting
  • Office

• Democracy is our most valuable possession. Upholding it is our duty and our responsibility. This means a continuous, decisive and self-confident argument; it means effort and endeavor to reach compromise and long-lasting consensus. These form the cornerstones of the only form of political system that can guarantee freedom.

  

  Wolfgang Thierse
  • Political
  • Responsibility
  • Democracy

• There are three sides to every argument. Yours. The other guy's. And the right side.

  

  Mordecai Richler
  • Guys
  • Three
  • Sides

• Reducing every issue to an argument can become stale but it's often a very good way of clarifying issues.

  

  Evan Davis
  • Issues
  • Argument
  • Reducing

• My wife was too beautiful for words, but not for arguments.

  

  John Barrymore
  • Beautiful
  • Wife
  • Argument

• The strong appearance of design in nature allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.

  

  Michael Behe
  • Strong
  • Simple
  • Design

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