Argument Quotes - Page 22

• In reasoning upon moral subjects, we have great occasion for candor, in order to compare circumstances, and weigh arguments with impartiality.

  Nathanael Emmons

  Order, Moral, Candor

  Nathanael Emmons (1842). “The Works of Nathanael Emmons, D.D.: With a Memoir of His Life [written by Himself]”, p.496

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• Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Skills, Offering

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• The first-cause and prime-mover argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth century (and brilliantly refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth century), is easily turned aside with just one more question: Who or what caused and moved God?

  Michael Shermer

  Thinking, Firsts, Causes

  Michael Shermer (2002). “Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time”, p.146, Macmillan

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• I think there's a fundamental moral issue about whether it's right for a machine to decide to kill a person. It's bad enough that people are deciding to kill people, but at least they have perhaps some moral argument that they're doing it to ultimately defend their families or prevent some greater evil.

  Judy Woodruff

  Thinking, Issues, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Generally, the arguments for same-sex marriage go along these lines: 'I have a civil right.' What the homosexual movement wants to do is to hitch their agenda to the civil rights movement, but I point out that this is illegitimate for a number of reasons. Number one, no black person has ever left his black-ness or changed his black-ness, but plenty of people have come out of the homosexual movement. What we need to do is distinguish between race and behavior.

  Erwin W. Lutzer

  Sex, Numbers, Rights

  Source: www1.cbn.com

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• I'm vey bad at marshaling arguments. I can't, at a dinner party, explain why I'm a socialist and why others should be socialists as well.

  David Hare

  Party, Dinner, Should

  "New Again: David Hare". Interview with Kathleen Tynan, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 29, 2015.

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• Anne Pitkin's poems have such lyrical sweep, such a sensitive eye for the natural world as it touches the human, that reading Winter Arguments is like seeing a landscape or, better, a richly realized painting of a landscape dotted with figures. But that would leave out their music, which would be a loss. This is a wise and graceful book by a well-traveled woman who knows how to confront deep feeling and frame it to make it all the more intense.

  Rosellen Brown

  Wise, Book, Reading

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• Sam Harris fearlessly describes a moral and intellectual emergency precipitated by religious fantasies--misguided beliefs that create suffering, that rationalize violence, that have endangered our nation and our future. His argument for the morality, the honesty, and the humility of atheism is galvanizing. It is a relief that someone has spoken so frankly, with such passion yet such rationality. Now when the subject arises, as it inevitably does, I can simply say: Read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation.

  Janna Levin

  Christian, Religious, Honesty

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• I am a believer in liberty . That is my religion to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right because it is his right but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Giving, Freedom Of Speech, Liberty

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1902). “Miscellany”

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• One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, .. The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth. It is time for the president and the Congress to follow that common sense for the good of the country.

  Dick Gephardt

  Country, Fall, Character

  "Top Democrats rip Clinton's defense strategy". www.cnn.com. September 14, 1998.

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• It is commonly said that if rational argument is so seldom the cause of conviction, philosophical apologists must largely be wasting their shot. The premise is true, but the conclusion does not follow. For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.

  Austin Farrer

  Philosophical, May, Causes

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• It would behoove you to have your thesis finely tuned and the logical arguments utilized in support of it tightly woven into a credible, and creatively persuasive tapestry.

  Alan Woods

  Logical Arguments, Support, Woven

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• While much of modern behavioral and social science treats individuals as autonomous agents, it is absolutely clear that the way we think and act is enormously influenced by the culture in which we live. It also is clear that the major elements of modern culture-science, technology, law, music, and religion-have evolved over time in a quite concrete sense of the term. Mesoudi makes these arguments very well and his book is a very good read.

  Richard R. Nelson

  Book, Thinking, Technology

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• Love is a very compelling argument.

  Brian Houston

  Love Is, Compelling

  Twitter post from Apr 23, 2015

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• Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other. To live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

  Ryan Bingham

  Stars, Mistake, Moving

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• An argument which proves too much, proves nothing.

  M. M. Mangasarian

  Too Much, Prove

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• It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.

  Criss Jami

  Arguing, Bigots

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.65, Criss Jami

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• It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort...only to find a big bear hug coming his way.

  Criss Jami

  Counter Attack, Feet, Hug

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.108, Criss Jami

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• Instead of creating aesthetically pleasing prose, you have to dig into a product or service, uncover the reasons why consumers would want to buy the product, and present those sales arguments in copy that is read, understood, and reacted to—copy that makes the arguments so convincingly the customer can’t help but want to buy the product being advertised.

  Robert W. Bly

  Creating, Want, Reason Why

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• President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States.

  John F. Kennedy

  Hands, Differences, Effort

  Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Democratic Rally, George Washington High School Stadium, Alexandria, VA, www.presidency.ucsb.edu. August 24, 1960.

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• The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs.

  Winston Churchill

  Parliament, Substitutes, Objects

  Sir Winston Churchill (1954). “Sir Winston Churchill: a self-portrait”

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• A witty illustration or an apt story will accomplish more than columns of argument.

  Chauncey Depew

  Witty, Illustration, Stories

  Chauncey Mitchell DePew (2005). “My Memories of Eighty Years”, p.318, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Where thou perceivest knowledge, bend the ear of attention and respect; But yield not further to the teaching, than as thy mind is warranted by reasons. Better is an obstinant disputant, that yieldeth inch by inch, Than the shallow traitor to himself, who surrendereth to half an argument.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Teaching, Knowledge, Yield

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• Philip Kitcher has composed the most formidable defense of the secular view of life since Dewey. Unlike almost all of contemporary atheism, Life After Faith is utterly devoid of cartoons and caricatures of religion. It is, instead, a sober and soulful book, an exemplary practice of philosophical reflection. Scrupulous in its argument, elegant in its style, humane in its spirit, it is animated by a stirring aspiration to wisdom. Even as I quarrel with it I admire it.

  Leon Wieseltier

  Book, Philosophical, Reflection

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• Small quarrels and tensions were expected because of our new environment. Every relationship has them. Each quarrel was soon forgotten and floated away on a wave. And then sometimes, on our silly days, the arguments returned on the wave, but the wave returned taller, a Tsunami, and neither of us knew where to run or what to do.

  Craig Stone

  Running, Silly, Sometimes

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