ARGUMENT QUOTES IV

quotations about arguments & arguing

The kind of truth that can be asserted by argument had lost all glamour, all lustre, for him, seeming no more now than another aspect of that ancient urge -- much older than the desire for truth -- to command attention.

BARRY UNSWORTH

Sacred Hunger


Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether discharged by a giant or a dwarf.

ROBERT BOYLE

attributed, A Treatise on Facts as Subjects of Inquiry by a Jury


One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.

MATTHEW PRIOR

Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd


Debate destroys despatch.

JOHN DENHAM

Of Prudence


But yet beware of councils when too full;
Number makes long disputes.

JOHN DENHAM

Of Prudence


There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.

HANNAH ARENDT

The Origins of Totalitarianism


There are two sides to every question.

PROTAGORAS

Protagoras


Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be--or to be indistinguishable from--self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.

NEAL STEPHENSON

Cryptonomicon


A noisy man is always in the right.

WILLIAM COWPER

Conversations


You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.

BEN GOLDACRE

Bad Science


This is no time nor fitting place to mar
The mirthful meeting with a wordy war.

LORD BYRON

Lara


So high at last the contest rose,
From words they almost came to blows.

JAMES MERRICK

The Chameleon


I am not arguing with you--I am telling you.

J. MCNEILL WHISTLER

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies


Bombs to settle arguments, the order of the boot
Can you hear them crying in the rubble of Beirut?

THE SPECIALS

"War Crimes"


A dispute begun in jest ... is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

The Idler, No. 23


To make the weaker argument the stronger.

PLATO

Apology of Socrates


Last night we had an argument
Oh, oh, yes we did
Although baby, the things I said
I never meant

SMOKEY ROBINSON

"We've Come Too Far to End It Now"


Altogether they puzzle me quite,
They all seem wrong and they all seem right.

ROBERT BUCHANAN

Fine Weather on the Digentia


We should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts.

MYSON

attributed, Lives of Eminent Philosophers


The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.

STEPHEN JAY GOULD

attributed, goodreads