Debate Quotes - Page 3

• It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

  Joseph Joubert

  Nature, Humorous, Profound

  "The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert". Book by Joseph Joubert, translated by Paul Auster, 2005.

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• If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won't be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.

  Socrates

  Life, Talking, Would Be

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• Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say.

  Rick Riordan

  Funny, Family, Humorous

  Rick Riordan (2013). “Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series”, p.111, BenBella Books, Inc.

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• When you're in the Middle of an Argument, ask yourself: Do I want to be Right or be Happy?

  Wayne Dyer

  Happy, Want, Arguing

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• When men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.81, Penguin

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• Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -but no opinion.

  Hannah Arendt

  Opportunity, Fickle, May

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• I think that you can disagree with people and debate over their positions with issues without engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

  Hillary Clinton

  Thinking, Issues, People

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• I am convinced that we as a body must conduct a formal and legitimate debate about election irregularities.

  Stephanie Tubbs Jones

  Body, Election, Formal

  "Countdown" with Keith Oldermann, www.nbcnews.com. January 7, 2005.

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• In the midst of fighting there is no place for public debate.

  Yitzhak Rabin

  Fighting, Midst

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• Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.

  Walter Benjamin

  Book, Harlots, Quarrels

  Walter Benjamin (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.51, Harvard University Press

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• We are all strong-willed, forceful personalities and the President encourages vigorous debate.

  Karen Hughes

  Strong, Personality, President

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• Much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science.

  James Inhofe

  Global Warming

  "Inhofe Declares Victory in Speech on Global Warming" by Jim Myers, www.prisonplanet.com. November 19, 2009.

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• I take the debate on the method of promoting democracy seriously

  Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  Democracy, Method, Promoting

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• Religion enabled society to organise itself to debate goodness, just as Greek drama had once done.

  Edward Bond

  Drama, Greek, Done

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• What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Effort, Political, Problem

  "Cal Thomas: Mr. Trump, please pick John Bolton for State" by Cal Thomas, www.foxnews.com. December 1, 2016.

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• I raise this objection to debate the process, and protect the integrity of the true will of the people.

  Stephanie Tubbs Jones

  Integrity, People, Process

  "History in the Making: Dems Force Debate on Ohio Voting Irregularities". www.democracynow.org. January 7, 2005.

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• I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Notion, Doubtful

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.229, Stanford University Press

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• Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.

  Christopher Lasch

  Information, Understood, Products

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• I don't feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field.

  Clifford Geertz

  Atmosphere, Alive, Fields

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• You've got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you've got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Political, Politics, Littles

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• Reliable data on the outsourcing of American jobs is sorely missing from the debate on globalization.

  Dan Lipinski

  Missing You, Jobs, Data

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• I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Issues, Political

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “The uncommon wisdom of Ronald Reagan: a portrait in his own words”

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• Defining the terms of the debate generally dictates who's gonna' win it.

  Paul Begala

  Winning, Defining, Term

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• It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Agreement, Long, Lost Friendship

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• The national debate on Social Security has been cheapened by demagoguery on all sides.

  Bill Delahunt

  Sides, Social, Has Beens

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