Argument Quotes

Whenever they are condemning weaves or breast implants, some people speak so passionately that their false teeth almost fall out.

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced sil

Argumentation is a human enterprise that is embedded in a larger social and psychological context. This context includes (1) the total psyches of the two persons engaged in dialogue, (2) the relationship between the two persons, (3) the immediate situation in which they find themselves and (4) the larger social, cultural and historical situation surrounding them.

Silence isn't always agreement. Sometimes people no longer argue because they no longer care.

All verbal spats have silent winners.

It's always funny that you can try and try again to steal all your critics' ammo, predict their responses, but no matter what, they'll still have a water gun stashed somewhere.

Be quick to resolve conflicts before they mature to become wars. The energetic crocodile was once a delicate egg!

Intelligence seeks reasons behind things. Wisdom looks for things behind reasons.

A mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness.

Mandy, I hardly think this was appropriate, not after… you know… after the funeral we haven’t had the money for any of your weird little games and I was hoping you’d be more mature now that Jud’s gone,” her father had disappointedly added. “How much’d that cake cost you?”“It’s paid for,” Mandy had argued, but her voice had sounded tiny in the harbour wind. “I used the cash from my summer job at Frenchy’s last year and I… it was my birthday, dad!”“You can’t even be normal about this one thing, can you?” her father had complained.Mandy hadn’t cried, she’d only stared back knowingly, her voice shaky. “…I’m normal.

Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can’t reason without them.

He slammed the door shut in Ian's face, the lock clicking into place. Ian hit it again with his fist before roaring, “If I were a pervert, I'd be looking for something a damn bit more attractive than you, jackass. And definitely someone that smelled alive.

You know, you can always do a three some.”“A three some?” I frowned. “No.”He shrugged. “Just a thought.”“Yeah, a dumb one,” I spat.“Hey! I didn’t call your idea to re-wallpaper the kitchen a dumb idea!”“You have a problem with the new paper?” I demanded.“Pop, please, it’s hideous,” Trick said.

Every human is a school subject. This is rather a metaphorical way of saying it, to put it straight, those you love are few, and the ones you detest are many.

Don’t say to yourself, ‘Everyone argues!’ to justify and normalise your fighting, when the most natural thing is to love.

He could argue a case for anything, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s wrong most of the time.

Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now? How could God have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression. If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally. If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will believe this silly nonsense? If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could. If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all morality, would have no desire to create anything. If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe? If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble. If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else. If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not take creation wholly blissful free from misfortune? If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all, And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place? Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest. Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own n

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

There was no arguing with a man when he started saying thing like that -- using logic as a weapon.

There are 2 kinds of fighters: those who fight because they hate, and those who fight because they love.

We usually learn from debates that we seldom learn from debates.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

A deep breath is a technique with which we minimize the number of instances where we say what we do not mean … or what we really think.

There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal story that people tell about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the brilliant, prickly, and iconoclastic late senator from New York. Apparently, Moynihan was in a heated argument with one of his colleagues over an issue, and the other senator, sensing he was on the losing side of the argument, blurted out: 'Well, you may disagree with me, Pat, I'm entitled to my own opinion." To which Moynihan frostily replied, "You are entitled to you own opinion, but you are not entitled to you own facts.

Some topics seem to be nothing but philosophical circles designed to lure the unsuspecting ant to its death.

Is it me you're describing, or yourself?

If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.

The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, becomes a staple, there is no wisdom in it.

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, dominate one's fellows.

The real purpose of the opposition is to minimize the amount of money the ruling party will have stolen from the people at the end of its term.

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the case, and so I dropped the matter. When you can't cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to argue?

Washington DC is happiest when in indignation overdrive.

We may have different points of arguments from perspectives of belief, faith and religion.But we must not hate each other. We are one human family.

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

I do not think anyone can read the letters which passed between Clarke and [Anthony] Collins without admitting that Collins, who writes with wonderful Power and closeness of reasoning, has by far the best of the argument, so far as the possible materiality of the soul goes; and that in this battle the Goliath of Freethinking overcame the champion of what was considered orthodoxy.

What was that about?” he asked his voice deep with a bitter distain. I raised an eyebrow at him, “What was what about?”“All that, ‘Are-you-okay?’ and ‘Do-you-want-to-talk-about-it?’ crap.”“I was being nice. You know, that thing you being the total opposite of right now.

Look, Jordan, you’re not alone any more. It’s my job to protect you while I’m here and I can’t do that if you keep pushing me away.”“That’s the problem, Michael,” I shot back. “You have more responsibilities to your boss than you do to me. You taught me how to defend myself, how to heal myself, and that should be good enough. You can’t keep babysitting one little human when you have an entire cosmos to worry about.” He faced me again, those green eyes boring into mine as if he could see straight through me. “Are you saying you want me to leave?”My chest tightened. I hadn’t expected him to say that. I bit my bottom lip, glancing away. “That’s not what I mean.”“Then what do you mean?” “Since when have I ever known what the hell I mean?” He touched my right cheek, making me face him. “You do when it counts.”Staring up at him, shirtless, vulnerable, and wounded, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He had a knack for picking my walls apart brick by brick. It bothered me. He took a step closer, casting a shadow over me. “Stop,” I mumbled, fixing my eyes on the floor. He brushed a lock of hair behind my ear, sliding his warm hand to lift my chin so I’d have to look at him. “Stop what?” he murmured. “Looking at me.”“Why?”“That’s how Terrell used to look at me before we kissed.”His lips parted to say something but I pushed past him, gathering up my duster from where it lay on the bed next to the dress. “Get dressed. We have more ghosts to help.

They argued because they liked argument, liked the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility, liked to question what was not questioned.

Culturally, one of the best arguments we can make is, wait and see.

A tightly woven argument is more impermeable to the frigid winds of criticism.

If you can't impress them with your argument, impress them with your actions.

It seemed to him there was never much time with women. Before you could look at one twice, you were into an argument, and they were telling you what was going to happen.

One day in my pharmacology class, we were discussing the possibility of legalizing marijuana. The class was pretty evenly divided between those that advocated legalizing marijuana and those that did not. The professor said he wanted to hear from a few people on both sides of the argument. A couple students had the opportunity to stand in front of the class and present their arguments. One student got up and spoke about how any kind of marijuana use was morally wrong and how nobody in the class could give him any example of someone who needed marijuana.tA small girl in the back of the classroom raised her hand and said that she didn’t want to get up, but just wanted to comment that there are SOME situations in which people might need marijuana. The same boy from before spoke up and said that she needed to back up her statements and that he still stood by the fact that there wasn’t anyone who truly needed marijuana. tThe same girl in the back of the classroom slowly stood up. As she raised her head to look at the boy, I could physically see her calling on every drop of confidence in her body. She told us that her husband had cancer. She started to tear up, as she related how he couldn’t take any of the painkillers to deal with the radiation and chemotherapy treatments. His body was allergic and would have violent reactions to them. She told us how he had finally given in and tried marijuana. Not only did it help him to feel better, but it allowed him to have enough of an appetite to get the nutrients he so desperately needed.tShe started to sob as she told us that for the past month she had to meet with drug dealers to buy her husband the only medicine that would take the pain away. She struggled every day because according to society, she was a criminal, but she was willing to do anything she could to help her sick husband. Sobbing uncontrollably now, she ran out of the classroom. The whole classroom sat there in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, my professor asked, “Is there anyone that thinks this girl is doing something wrong?” Not one person raised their hand.

I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments but not with comprehension.

Christian writers, whether they like it or not, do not simply write for themselves; for good or ill, readers will see their work as reflecting Jesus Christ and his church. And if only for this reason - though there are other reasons - one must take great care when dealing with potentially controversial topics not to imagine one's every pronouncement preceded by 'Thus saith the Lord.' The law of love, on which 'all the law and the prophets' depend (Matt. 22:40), mandates charity toward one's opponents in argument.

Some things that goes out of your mouth can wrap itself around your neck and choke you to death in future.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same door where in I went.

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

The volume of your voice does not increase the validity of your argument.

Why do people always assume that volume will succeed when logic won’t? - Damon

Raise your vibration, Not your tone of voice..You gain inspiration, For Peace is a choice.

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God.

When a political opponent resorts to the racist card, it's a sure sign of moral bankruptcy: there's no decent argument left in the armoury.

Intellect is the virtue of ignoring one’s emotions’ attempt to contaminate one’s opinions.

When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.

I have, as it were, constructed a lay-figure for the purposes of a demonstration which I desired to be as rapid and as impressive as possible.

Has anyone ever told you that you're unbearably rude?" she returned, facing him again."Why, yes. You have on several occasions, as I recall. If you care to apologize for that, however, I'll be happy to escort you wherever you wish to go."A flush crept up her cheeks, coloring her delicate, ivory skin. "I will never apologize to you," she snapped. "And you may go straight to Hades."He hadn't expected her to apologize, yet he couldn't help suggesting it every so often. "Very well. Upstairs, first door on the left. I'll be in Hades, if you should require my services.

Those two little words -- says you -- are the most powerful argument in any discipline: theology, philosphy, even domestic harmony. They are powerful because they are true. Whenever you say something, it is you who says it. You. And what do you know?

A fight like this was stunning, revealing not just how much he was on the lookout for enemies, but how she too was unable to abandon argument which escalated into rage. Neither of them would back off, they held bitterly to principles.Can't you tolerate people being different, why is this so important?If this isn't important, nothing is.The air seemed to grow thick with loathing. All over a matter that could never be resolved. They went to bed speechless, parted speechless the next morning, and during the day were overtaken by fear - hers that he would never come home, his that when he did she would not be there. Their luck held, however. They came together in the late afternoon pale with contrition, shaking with love, like people who had narrowly escaped an earthquake and had been walking around in naked desolation.