Argument Quotes - Page 34

• Judging from the tendency and effect of his arguments, an atheist does not appear positively to refuse that a God may be... His verdict on the doctrine of God is only that it is not proven. It is not that it is disproven. He is but an atheist. He is not an anti-theist.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Atheist, Judging, Atheism

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• Pascal 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 Flew

  Thinking, Self, Atheism

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• The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Biblical, Order, Years

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• Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Silence, Atheism, Sometimes

  Thomas Hobbes, Richard Tuck (1996). “Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised Student Edition”, p.184, Cambridge University Press

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• It's easy to sell good news like this, and the authors confidently rely on classic fallacious arguments. They argue by declaration, which is what makes the books so amusing. In matter-of-fact, authoritative tones, the authors tell us how plants and human beings exchange energy - or they describe what angels look like, whether or how they're sexed, how they communicate with human beings, and how they differ from ghosts. Readers might be expected to wonder, How do they know?

  Wendy Kaminer

  Book, Angel, Atheism

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• Know you that Allah has made Islam the most sublime path for attainment of His supreme pleasure and the highest standards of his worship and obedience. He has favoured it with noble precepts, exalted principles, undoubtable arguments, unchallengeable supremacy and undeniable wisdom. It is up to you to maintain the eminence and dignity granted to it by the Lord, to follow it sincerely, to do justice to its articles of faith and belief, to obey implicitly its tenets and orders and to give it the proper place in your lives.

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Wisdom, Islamic, Order

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• I think that in any argument about right or wrong in football, a reference to Don Revie's Leeds United is the nuclear option. There is, quite simply, nowhere to go after that. There has never been a more horrible football team. The Leeds of the Seventies were found guilty, week in, week out, of crimes against humanity.

  Giles Smith

  Soccer, Football, Team

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• It must be that there is something in the hearts of human beings, some natural fluid perhaps, that insists on happiness, even confronted with the most powerful arguments against it.

  Ben H. Winters

  Powerful, Heart, Natural

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• I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent.

  Ross McKitrick

  Lying, Collaboration, Layers

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• London is one of the world's centres of Arab journalism and political activism. The failure of left and right, the establishment and its opposition, to mount principled arguments against clerical reaction has had global ramifications. Ideas minted in Britain – the notion that it is bigoted to oppose bigotry; 'Islamophobic' to oppose clerics whose first desire is to oppress Muslims – swirl out through the press and the net to lands where they can do real harm.

  Nick Cohen

  Real, Land, Ideas

  "At last, Islam's appeasers may be on the run" by Nick Cohen, www.theguardian.com. February 5, 2011.

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• I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.

  Plato

  Mean, Walks, Turns

  Plato (2011). “The Final Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Probably no single event highlights the strength of Campbell's argument (on peak oil) better than the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands. Bitumen, the world's ugliest and most expensive hydrocarbon, can never be a reasonable substitute for light oil due to its extreme capital, energy, and carbon intensity. Bitumen looks, smells, and behaves like asphalt; running an economy on it is akin to digging up our existing road infrastructure, melting it down, and enriching the goop with hydrogen until it becomes a sulfur-rich but marketable oil.

  Andrew Nikiforuk

  Running, Oil, Smell

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• Success and vocabulary go hand in hand. This has been proven so often that it no longer admits of argument.

  Wilfred Funk

  Vocabulary, Hands, Has Beens

  Wilfred Funk (1974). “Words of Power”

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• Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.

  Emil Ruder

  Writing, Design, Information

  Emil Ruder (2001). “Typographie”, Arthur Niggli

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• An electrician isn't an opinion former, but a graphic designer is. My argument is that all graphic designers hold high levels of responsibility in society. We take invisible ideas and make them tangible. That's our job.

  Neville Brody

  Jobs, Responsibility, Ideas

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• We fight every night, now that's not kosher
  I reminisce with bliss of when we was closer
  And wake up to be greeted by an argument again
  You act like you're ten
  So immature, I try to concentrate on a cure
  And keep lookin' at the front door.

  Extra P

  Rap, Fighting, Night

  "Song: 'Looking at the Front Door'". 1991.

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• The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began - in their civilized incarnations - in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. . . . Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty.

  Carl Sagan

  Honesty, Ideas, Democracy

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• I think the three years have demonstrated how little this argument has to do with reality.

  Yevgeny Primakov

  Reality, Thinking, Years

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• There can be no argument about the Lone Star State's significant contributions to American history, and we must remember the actions and the sacrifices of those who made Texas independence a reality.

  Michael McCaul

  Stars, Sacrifice, Reality

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• If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Giving, Abuse, Logic

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.3823, Library of Alexandria

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• Arguments cannot be answered with insults. . . . Kindness is strength. . . . Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Kindness, Blow, Mind

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1588, Library of Alexandria

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• The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.

  William Jennings Bryan

  People, Political, Looks

  William Jennings Bryan (1967). “William Jennings Bryan: Selections”, Indianapolis : Bobbs-Merrill [1967]

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• The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry, which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition.

  Samuel Johnson

  Cutting, Years, Long

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.237

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• 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. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.

  Carroll Quigley

  Party, Years, Ideas

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• The Unconscious Civilisation There is a certain terrifying dignity to the big ideologies. With the stroke of an intellectual argument the planet is put in its place. Only the bravest or the most foolish of individuals would not become passive before such awe inspiring destinies.

  John Ralston Saul

  Destiny, Political, Intellectual

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