Argument Quotes - Page 25

• The best argument for anarchism is the twentieth century.

  Joseph Sobran

  Century, Anarchism, Twentieth Century

  8 Copy quote

• We argue with our biology, and the result of that argument is civilization.

  Charles Siebert

  Civilization, Arguing, Biology

  5 Copy quote

• But you now, you wear your soul on your sleeve, exhausting your energy, propping yourself up on a tree, mumbling, or bent over your desk, asleep. Heaven gives you a form and you wear it out by pointless argument.

  Zhuangzi

  Giving, Tree, Heaven

  15 Copy quote

• Lutherans, whose arguments and mistakes will not be difficult to contest or discover, do not want to attribute any value to works, and they do not understand enough the scope of the justification.

  Michael Servetus

  Mistake, Want, Enough

  14 Copy quote

• This can never become popular, and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for fine-spun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of speculative reason, and thus to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses.

  Immanuel Kant

  School, Men, Hands

  Immanuel Kant (1855). “Critique of pure reason, tr. by J.M.D. Meiklejohn”, p.37

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• An argument frequently used by believers [is] to force unbelievers to soften their terms by accepting their opponents' definition; "Atheist" means without a concept of God that is logically convincing, not with proof that God does not exist.

  Jim Herrick

  Atheist, Mean, Doe

  Jim Herrick (1985). “Against the Faith: Essays on Deists, Skeptics, and Atheists”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whether or not you agree that trimming and cooking are likely to lead on to downright forgery, there is little to support the argument that trimming and cooking are less reprehensible and more forgivable. Whatever the rationalization is, in the last analysis one can no more than be a bit dishonest than one can be a little bit pregnant. Commit any of these three sins and your scientific career is in jeopardy and deserves to be.

  Charles Thomas Jackson

  Science, Careers, Support

  20 Copy quote

• People often find it easier to refute a fake extreme opponent than a more cautious real one, so they knock down the straw man instead. It is actually worth the trouble to identify the invalid forms of argument, and to learn their names. Not only can you then avoid them yourself; you can also identify them in opponents. If you call your opponent's errors by their Latin names, you can make it look as though he or she is suffering from a rare tropical disease.

  Madsen Pirie

  Real, Latin, Men

  4 Copy quote

• To those who think that the law of gravity interferes with their freedom, there is nothing to say.

  Lionel Tiger

  Thinking, Law, Gravity

  4 Copy quote

• When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Children, Husband

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.553, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are told that the possession of nuclear weapons - in some cases even the testing of these weapons - is essential for national security. But this argument can be made by other countries as well.

  Joseph Rotblat

  Country, Essentials, Nuclear

  Joseph Rotblat, Daisaku Ikeda (2007). “A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat”, p.132, I.B.Tauris

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Understanding, Progress, Acting

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 7 : Majority Rules, 1960.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions.

  Rene Descartes

  Peaceful, Solitude, Mind

  9 Copy quote

• It is astonishing how articulate one can become when alone and raving at a radio. Arguments and counter arguments, rhetoric and bombast flow from one's lips like scurf from the hair of a bank manager.

  Stephen Fry

  Hair, Radio, Flow

  Stephen Fry (2010). “Paperweight”, p.62, Random House

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Banh Mi sandwich is really the only good argument for colonialism.

  Calvin Trillin

  Colonialism, Sandwiches

  7 Copy quote

• A 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

  Drama, Confused, Character

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Os Guinness

  Waiting

  9 Copy quote

• The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct.

  Ralph Hartley

  Numbers, Arguing, Unimportant

  11 Copy quote

• The ego is a self-justifying historian which seeks only that information that agrees with it, rewrites history when it needs to, and does not even see the evidence that threatens it.

  Anthony Greenwald

  Self, Ego, Needs

  8 Copy quote

• I've always felt that the placement of a man's testicles is an eloquent argument against intelligent design.

  Mark Lawrence

  Intelligent, Men, Design

  Mark Lawrence (2014). “Prince of Fools”, p.155, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Satire works in a bunch of specific ways, like a very precisely-geared bomb. It's a bit like something that looks harmless, and you swallow it, but once it's inside you it's too late, and it triggers, blowing up. And it's your specific inner beliefs and faulty arguments that trigger a satire bomb. If your arguments work, the bomb doesn't trigger, it doesn't need to.

  Steve Aylett

  Needs, Looks, Too Late

  7 Copy quote

• Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature. But it is not science alone that has guided me. I have also been helped by a renewed study of the classical philosophical arguments.

  Antony Flew

  Philosophical, Law, Three

  "One Flew out of the atheists’ nest" by William West, www.mercatornet.com. April 1, 2009.

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Desire, Found, Turns

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2009). “The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series”, p.394, Random House

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's difficult to love someone you don't respect, which is hard to remember when you're having an argument.

  Mehmet Oz

  Remember, Difficult, Love Someone

  5 Copy quote

• A striking feature of moral and political argument in the modern world is the extent to which it is innovators, radicals, and revolutionaries who revive old doctrines, while their conservative and reactionary opponents are the inventors of new ones.

  Alasdair MacIntyre

  Political, Doctrine, World

  Alasdair MacIntyre (2003). “A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the 20th Century”, p.162, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source