Debate Quotes - Page 33

• Use "entropy" and you can never lose a debate, von Neumann told Shannon - because no one really knows what "entropy" is.

  William Poundstone

  Use, Shannon, Entropy

  William Poundstone (2010). “Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street”, p.57, Macmillan

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• I still believe that, in the long run, the aggregate of the decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is likely to do less harm than the centralized decisions of a Government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster. As I said earlier in this debate, our economic medicine may be painful but it is fast and powerful because it can act freely.

  John James Cowperthwaite

  Running, Powerful, Believe

  Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (p. 216), March 24, 1966.

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• After listening to the debate on unemployment I can see a danger that Liberals lose to the Tories their claim to have new and sensible ideas and are left saying "Me too" to a Socialist conventional wisdom which is failing. The salient need of this country to produce more and much more efficiently hardly figured on the agenda.

  Jo Grimond

  Country, Ideas, Listening

  The Sunday Times, September 19, 1976.

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• Consider the case of a person who holds a view with probability 1. Then coherence says that it is no use having a debate with them because nothing will change their mind.

  Dennis Lindley

  Views, Mind, Use

  "Understanding Uncertainty". Book by Dennis Lindley (Chapter 6 "Bayes Rule", p. 91), 2006.

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• An idea is only an idea if it causes unease, debate and reflection. By that standard, Thomas Homer-Dixon's concept of an 'ingenuity gap' is truly a new idea. I can think of no other new concept that so fully condenses all of the challenges we face as a human civilization than the 'ingenuity gap'. Homer-Dixon has found a way to unite all of our concerns about economics, war, population growth, complexity, etc. under a single heading. He is one of an elite group of academics who can write for a mass audience.

  Robert D. Kaplan

  War, Writing, Reflection

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• I can't wait for the Republican debates to start and there's literally 65 guys on one stage.

  Conan O'Brien

  Waiting, Guy, Republican

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• Whether thats positive or not, people are talking about the Old Vic Theater again with passion and commitment and controversy and debate.

  Kevin Spacey

  Passion, Commitment, Talking

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• Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France.

  Linda Colley

  War, Struggle, Men

  Linda Colley (2005). “Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837”, p.79, Yale University Press

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• Nothing is more urgent than a serious, dare I say compassionate, debate as to where we are going at home and abroad. Technicians cannot master revolutions; every great achievement was an idea before it became a reality. Cathedrals cannot be built by those who are paralyzed by doubt or consumed by cynicism. If a society loses the capacity for great conception, it can be administered but not governed.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Wisdom, Home, Reality

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• The big debate right now is if Saddam is alive or dead. He's dead, then he's alive, then dead, then alive. It's just confusing. Today they showed videotape, and Saddam was speaking at his own funeral.

  David Letterman

  Funeral, Confusing, Alive

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• Of all the differences between the Old World and the New, this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European States... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of Church and State. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law, except as voluntary associations of private citizens.

  James Bryce

  Religious, War, Europe

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• Just look at who won the third debate between Bush and Gore. I knew Bush won, because people liked him more. People just didn't like Gore. But all the journalists thought Gore won big, he cleaned the guy's clock.

  Chris Matthews

  People, Guy, Looks

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• All discussion, all debate, all dissidence tends to question and in consequence, to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and its justification.

  Learned Hand

  Upset, Atheism, Purpose

  Learned Hand (1955). “A fanfare for Prometheus”

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• The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any of the other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.

  S. T. Joshi

  Meaningful, Religious, Atheist

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• If the ancient churches, in debating and deciding the greatest mysteries of religion, knew nothing of these two texts, I understand not why we should be so fond of them now the debate is over.

  Isaac Newton

  Two, Atheism, Church

  Sir Isaac Newton (2016). “Delphi Collected Works of Sir Isaac Newton (Illustrated)”, p.1746, Delphi Classics

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• The evening was very professionally organized, and most of the people were exceptionally polite, although it did make me a little nervous when one church official told me after the debate when a big crowd of people surrounded me that he had assigned me a body guard "just in case." Just in case what? I thought Christians were suppose to be exceptionally tolerant. Well, in any case, I guess I was grateful for the gesture, "just in case."

  Michael Shermer

  Christian, Grateful, People

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• I don't ever remember being able to debate with my parents. Even though I thought of myself as a very bright kid, I couldn't be vocal in that way.

  Mindy Kaling

  Kids, Parent, Able

  Interview with Kathryn Borel, www.believermag.com.

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• No man - prince, peasant, pope - has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!

  Morris West

  Running, Men, Sheep

  "The Heretic" by Morris West, 1968.

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• A group called the Texas Tea Party Patriots is hosting a debate next month where Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will go head to head, while people watching that will go head to pillow.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Party, Texas, People

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• Arnold Schwarzenegger got into a huge debate with Arianna Huffington about immigration - going back and forth - finally immigration came in and hauled them both away.

  David Letterman

  Immigration, Schwarzenegger, Back And Forth

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• Last night, we had the first gubernatorial debate. Some people are criticizing Schwarzenegger for not going. They say Arnold goes around telling people he cares, everything is going to be great, forget about everything he did in the '70s. Hey, it worked for George Bush.

  Jay Leno

  Night, People, Hey

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• ... the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Supportive, Analysis

  Noam Chomsky (1989). “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, p.10, Pluto Press

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• As the economy unravels, as hundreds of millions of Americans confront the fact that things will not get better, life for those targeted by this culture of hate will become increasingly difficult. Rational debate will prove useless.

  Chris Hedges

  Hate, Get Better, Culture

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• Such debates [about the nature of Scripture], in my view, distract attention from the real point of what the Bible is there for. Squabbling over particular definitions of the qualities of the Bible is like a married couple squabbling over which of them loves the children more, when they should be getting on with bringing them up and setting them a good example. The Bible is there to enable God's people to be equipped to do God's work in God's world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God's truth.

  N. T. Wright

  Couple, Children, Real

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• Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Age, Might, Possessed

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