Argument Quotes - Page 30

• The argument is not between adding features and simplicity, between adding capability and usability. The real issue is about design: designing things that have the power required for the job while maintaining understandabili ty, the feeling of control, and the pleasure of accomplishment.

  Donald A. Norman

  Jobs, Real, Issues

  6 Copy quote

• As an explanation of the world materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has the quality of a madman's arguments; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simplicity, Leaving, Insane

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• You never win an argument until they attack your person.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Winning, Persons

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.14, Random House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The art of conversation is to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without argument, and to clothe great matters in a motley garb.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Art, Stubborn, Matter

  Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The works of Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield: embracing novels, romances, plays, poems, biography, short stories and great speeches”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence.

  George Eliot

  Lying, Mind, Donkey

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.250, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sophistry is the fallacy of argument.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Sophistry, Fallacy

  21 Copy quote

• God, in His wrath, has not left this world to the mercy of the subtlest dialectician; and all arguments are happily transitory in their effect when they contradict the primal intuitions of conscience and the inborn sentiments of the heart.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Heart, Wrath, Intuition

  7 Copy quote

• True wisdom, laboring to expound, heareth others readily;
  False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Wisdom, Mind, Deny

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1855). “Proverbial Philosophy: A Book of Thoughts and Arguments, Originally Treated : First and Second Series, Complete in One Volume”, p.247

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember, it takes two to make an argument. The one who is wrong is the one who will be doing most of the talking.

  Ann Landers

  Talking, Two, Remember

  Ann Landers (1978). “The Ann Landers encyclopedia, A to Z: improve your life emotionally, medically, sexually, socially, spiritually”, Galahad Books

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high; but we must remember that men are not angels.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Angel, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.147

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.

  James Russell Lowell

  Memories, Home, Gunpowder

  James Russell Lowell (1910). “Essays, English and American”

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• More words ain't good for anything in the world only to bring on more argument.

  Will Rogers

  World

  Will Rogers (1973). “There's Not a Bathing Suit in Russia & Other Bare Facts”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Color, Water

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.43, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Agreeing to differ.
  [Lat., Discors concordia.]

  Ovid

  4 Copy quote

• Every sermon must have a solid rest in Scripture, and the pointedness which comes of a clear subject, and the conviction which belongs to well-thought argument, and the warmth that proceeds from earnest appeal.

  Phillips Brooks

  Scripture, Conviction, Appeals

  Phillips Brooks (1964). “On Preaching”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Biggest affirmative argument I know in favor of 'If a man die, shall he live again?' is just the way you feel inside you that nothin' can stop you from livin' on.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Men, Favors, Way

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1939). “Song of Years”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A scholar's heart is a dark well in which are buried many aborted feelings that rise to the surface as arguments.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Learning, Heart, Dark

  4 Copy quote

• There's no doubt in my mind that sleep deprivation is the hidden number one cause of arguments and cybersex. I'm convinced that countless good relationships end and bad ones begin because of chronic fatigue. Never make a major decision until after you've taken a nap.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Taken, Sleep, Naps

  Sarah Ban Breathnach (1999). “Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self”, G K Hall & Company

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan.

  Herman Melville

  Political, Intellectual, Patriotism

  "Battle Pieces: And Aspects of the War". Book by Herman Melville, 1860.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A silly row which got out of hand.

  Bill Vaughan

  Silly, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.

  Ben Jonson

  Art, Style, Matter

  Ben Jonson (1756). “Underwoods. Timber; or, Discoveries made upon men and matter. Horace, Of the art of poetry [with an English translation by Jonson]. The English grammar. Leges convivales, rules for the Tavern Academy. The case is altered”, p.133

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason; for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Men, Feelings, Might

  Oliver Goldsmith (1837). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M. B.: Including a Variety of Pieces”, p.432

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female says, in the tone of one clinching an argument, 'Edgar says -- ' And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool.

  Agatha Christie

  Intelligent, Perfect, Fool

  Agatha Christie (1931). “The man in the brown suit”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

  Judith Martin

  Ignorance, Sacrifice, Compassion

  Judith Martin (1996). “Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility”, Crown

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys.

  Blaise Pascal

  Pain, Distance, Light

  Blaise Pascal (1849). “Thoughts of Blaise Pascal”, p.83

  7 Copy quote

  Show source