Browse through our collection of quotes tagged with Argument & Debate.
Never contend with one that is foolish, proud, positive, testy, or with a superior, or a clown, in matter of argument.
Thomas Fuller
When good people have a falling out, only one of them may be at fault at first; but if the strife continues long, usually both become guilty.
Soft words are hard arguments.
He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own.
Aesop
Argument is conclusive... but... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns. his hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.
Roger Bacon
There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.
Daniel C. Dennett
I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defence of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty
William Jennings Bryan, Cross of
It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.
May Sarton
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
Samuel Butler
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy -- but he who has shown the better temper.
... the hydrostatic paradox of controversy. Don't you know what that means? Well, I will tell you. You know that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way. And the fools know it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
Sa'di
Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments.
Nathaniel Emmons
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions.
Homer
Wise men argue cases, fools decide them.
Anacharsis
No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
Jascha Heifetz
