Disagreement Quotes - Page 9

• Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.

  Charles Dickens

  Party, Mean, Men

  Bleak House ch. 1 (1853)

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• But if you should take the bond of goodwill out of the universe no house or city could stand, nor would even the tillage of the fields abide. If that statement is not clear, then you may understand how great is the power of friendship and of concord from a consideration of the results of enmity and disagreement. For what house is so strong, or what state so enduring that it cannot be utterly overthrown by animosities and division?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Strong, Cities, House

  Cicero, Marcus Tullius Cicero, William Armistead Falconer (1923). “Cicero in twenty-nine volumes”

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• The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, People, Selfishness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.14

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• The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Truth, Men, Thinking

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• For my generation the relationship with Europe was the central point of American foreign policy. Even during my time in government there was disagreement, sometimes very strong disagreement. But they were all like arguments within a family. I am not sure if the generation which doesn't have these experiences has the same view of things.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Strong, Europe, Government

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Opportunity, Law, Justice

  "Frank v. Magnum, 237 U.S. 309, 347". Judicial opinion, 1915.

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• Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their agreement, as falsity means their disagreement, with reality.

  William James

  Truth, Mean, Reality

  William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.99, Routledge

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• Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.

  Robert Musil

  Agreement, Order, People

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• For those parents from lower-class and minority communities[who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

  School, Class, Agency

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• Our friendship will weather the current disagreement as well, to grow even stronger in the future.

  Benjamin Netanyahu

  Friendship, Weather, Stronger

  "Netanyahu: Everything’s Fine!" by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 2, 2015.

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• Why can't the Arabs and Jews resolve their disagreements at the conference table like good Christians?

  Warren Austin

  Christian, Tables, Resolve

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• Those of us who have the privilege to serve this country have an obligation to do our job as best we can. We come from different parties, but we are Americans first. And that's why disagreement cannot mean dysfunction. It can't degenerate into hatred. The American people's hopes and dreams are what matters, not ours. Our obligations are to them. Our regard for them compels us all, Democrats and Republicans, to cooperate, and compromise, and act in the best interests of our nation –- one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Country, Jobs

  "Obama may have won now, but next three years could be tough" by Leigh Ann Caldwell, www.cnn.com. October 18, 2013.

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• We [US government] have no fundamental disagreement with the Saudis - I mean, excuse me, with the Iraqis any more than we do with the Arab League, which we happen to support the position they're taking.

  Joe Biden

  Mean, Government, League

  "Transcript: Interview With Joe Biden". Interview with Robert Siegel, www.wbur.org. December 13, 2011.

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• This inability to engage in debate or handle disagreement is becoming the calling card of the left.

  Kirsten Powers

  Inability, Cards, Calling

  "Fox News’ evangelical Democrat: An interview with Kirsten Powers". Interview withJonathan Merritt, religionnews.com. April 10, 2013.

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• Quite often there's a great deal of disagreement within the executive branch about what we should do. Some cases are pretty straightforward, but a lot of them aren't.

  Donald Verrilli Jr.

  Branches, Executive Branch, Should

  "Farewell to the General". "Amicus" with Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. June 28, 2016.

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• As for [Amiri] Baraka, he and I have disagreements. I mean, he becomes a demagogue when there's an audience. He's a nice guy in private. I mean I like the guy; he's a terrific writer. I've published two of his books. Baraka is one of these fundamentalists who is prone to idol worship.

  Ishmael Reed

  Nice, Book, Mean

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Contention, especially violence, is not the way to deal with our problems. Unfortunately, television, videos, movies, and electronic games teach otherwise. Even cartoons and many children's programs depict violence in amusing ways, suggesting that no one really gets hurt and that any disagreement can be solved by a karate kick or the use of some weapon.

  Harold Anthony Oaks

  Hurt, Children, Media

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• The greater informational levels of the voters, their decreasing inhibitions in expressing disagreement, and their greater preference for Jeffersonian direct involvement, all make the need for a 'permanent campaign' to sell a president's policies all the more crucial.

  Dick Morris

  Political, President, Needs

  Dick Morris (2007). “The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century”, p.74, St. Martin's Press

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• Our predecessors understood that the ties that bind America are far stronger than disagreements over any particular policy and far more durable and profound than any party affiliation.

  Madeleine Albright

  Party, America, Ties

  Remarks and Question and Answer Session at the Chamber of Commerce Dinner, 1997-2001.state.gov. June 8, 1997.

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• Abortion raises moral and spiritual questions over which honorable persons can disagree sincerely and profoundly. But those disagreements did not then and do not now relieve us of our duty to apply the Constitution faithfully.

  Harry A. Blackmun

  Spiritual, Abortion, Moral

  "January 22, 1973: Roe v. Wade", www.cnn.com. March 10, 2003.

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• My lord, lawyers are a dangerous species of animals till ha'e any dependence upon--they are always starting punctilios and deeficulties among friends. Why, my dear lord, it is their interest that aw mankind should be at variance; for disagreement is the vary manure wi' which they enrich and fatten the land of leetigation; and as they find that constantly produces the best crop, depend upon it they will always be sure till lay it on ass thick ass they can.

  Charles Macklin

  Animal, Land, Dear Lord

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• It is always disagreeable to take stands. It is always easier to compromise, always easier to let things go. To many women, and I am one of them, it is extraordinarily difficult to care about anything enough to cause disagreement or unpleasant feelings, but I have come to the conclusion that this must be done for a time until we can prove our strength and demand respect for our wishes. We cannot even be of real service in the coming campaign and speak as a united body of women unless we have the respect of men and show that when we express a wish, we are willing to stand by it.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Real, Men, Feelings

  Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor Roosevelt (1982). “Love, Eleanor: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends”, Doubleday Books

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• But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation.

  J. L. Austin

  Names, Quality, Different

  "Philosophical Papers" by J. L. Austin, James Opie Urmson, Geoffrey James Warnock, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford, (p. 73), 1979.

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• I would say the special experience of American wartime policy in the last 40 years, from Vietnam on, is that the war itself became controversial in the country and that the most important thing we need in the current situation is, whatever disagreements there may be on tactics, that the legitimacy of the war itself does not become a subject of controversy. We have to start with the assumption, obviously, that whatever administration is conducting a war wants to end it.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Country, War, Years

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• Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views...The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.

  Peter Drucker

  Views, Decision, Doe

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