quotations about arguments & arguing
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life of Samuel Johnson
Bombs to settle arguments, the order of the boot
Can you hear them crying in the rubble of Beirut?
THE SPECIALS
"War Crimes"
The kind of truth that can be asserted by argument had lost all glamour, all lustre, for him, seeming no more now than another aspect of that ancient urge -- much older than the desire for truth -- to command attention.
BARRY UNSWORTH
Sacred Hunger
Last night we had an argument
Oh, oh, yes we did
Although baby, the things I said
I never meant
SMOKEY ROBINSON
"We've Come Too Far to End It Now"
Though we cannot out-vote them, we will out-argue them.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life of Samuel Johnson
You may say, I am hot; I say I am not,
Only warm, as the subject on which I am got.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The Famous Speechmaker
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACRE
Bad Science
I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life of Samuel Johnson
Altogether they puzzle me quite,
They all seem wrong and they all seem right.
ROBERT BUCHANAN
Fine Weather on the Digentia
We should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts.
MYSON
attributed, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether discharged by a giant or a dwarf.
ROBERT BOYLE
attributed, A Treatise on Facts as Subjects of Inquiry by a Jury
I am not arguing with you--I am telling you.
J. MCNEILL WHISTLER
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
Brief and bitter the debate.
ROBERT BROWNING
Hervé Riel
But yet beware of councils when too full;
Number makes long disputes.
JOHN DENHAM
Of Prudence
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd
A dispute begun in jest ... is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Idler, No. 23
There are two sides to every question.
PROTAGORAS
Protagoras
Debate destroys despatch.
JOHN DENHAM
Of Prudence
This is no time nor fitting place to mar
The mirthful meeting with a wordy war.
LORD BYRON
Lara
We arg'ed the thing at breakfast, we arg'ed the thing at tea,
And the more we arg'ed the question, the more we didn't agree.
WILL CARLETON
Betsy and I Are Out