Argument Quotes - Page 31

• Whatever advantages may have arisen, in the past, out of the existence of a specially favored and highly privileged aristocracy, it is clear to me that today no argument can stand that supports unequal opportunity or any intrinsic disqualification for sharing in the whole of life.

  Margaret Mead

  Past, Opportunity, Equality

  Margaret Mead (1972). “Blkberry Winter”

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• Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.

  Plutarch

  Lamps, Witness, Mines

  "Life of Demosthenes". Book by Plutarch,

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• No peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or argument; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts.

  John Ruskin

  Peace, Fate, Winning

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• Like all born politicians, their eye was for the main chance rather than for the argument, and they found it easier to forswear a conviction than to forego a comfort.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Eye, Comfort, Chance

  Ellen Glasgow (1933). “The Old Dominion Edition of the Works of Ellen Glasgow: The Miller of Old Church”

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• After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Evil, Nostalgia, Exhausted

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• Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.

  Jeremy Collier

  Order, Reason, Well Dressed

  Jeremy Collier, Thomas Lathbury (1852). “An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain: Chiefly of England: from the First Planting of Christianity, to the End of the Reign of King Charles the Second ; with a Brief Account of the Affairs of Religion in Ireland Collected from the Best Ancient Historians, Councils, and Records”, p.440

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• When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.

  Isaac Watts

  Sophistry, Appearance, True Ones

  Isaac Watts (1813). “The Works of the Rev. Isaac Watts D.D. in Nine Volumes”, p.495

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• A gun is not an argument.

  Ayn Rand

  Gun

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.16, Penguin

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• only that which is deeply felt can change us. Rational arguments alone cannot penetrate the layers of fear and conditioning that comprise our crippling belief system.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Feelings, Layers, Belief

  Marilyn Ferguson (1987). “The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s”, Tarcher

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• The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.

  Mary McCarthy

  Character, Views, Life Is

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• But the paradox is here: when cultivated people do stay away from a certain portion of the population, when all social advantages are persistently withheld, it may be for years, the result itself is pointed to as a reason and is used as an argument for the continued withholding.

  Jane Addams

  Years, People, Population

  Jane Addams (2016). “Twenty Years at Hull House”, p.224, Open Road Media

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• No argument can persuade me to like oysters if I do not like them. In other words, the disturbing thing about matters of taste is that they are not communicable.

  Hannah Arendt

  Oysters, Matter, Taste

  Hannah Arendt, Ronald Beiner (1989). “Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy”, p.66, University of Chicago Press

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• Of course, Jastrow's comment is exaggerated at best; theologians hardly predicted the Big Bang. If our universe turns out to be closed, hence with an end, this does not mean apocalyptic visions of the end of the world were on target. And even if a beginning for the universe is a successful prediction of one version of theism, this is still not that impressive. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The Big Bang becomes strong support for God only with an argument showing that such a beginning requires a Creator.

  Taner Edis

  Strong, Mean, Successful

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• When confronted with a demand that the universe have a cause, infidels have usually pointed out that God was not much of an explanation. This is true enough, but not really a positive argument. After mechanistic explanation became popular, infidels liked to restrict causality to the chain of causes in an eternal material universe, pointing out that no supernatural cause was then necessary. Plausible, but still rather defensive. Today's skeptic can do better. In all likelihood, the universe is uncaused. It is random. It just is.

  Taner Edis

  Religion, Demand, Causality

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• But the argument is still unsound, because the first premise is false: there are other unmentioned alternatives, for example, that Jesus as described in the gospels is a legendary figure, so that the trilemma is false as it stands.

  William Lane Craig

  Jesus, Religion, Example

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• Obama's major accomplishment is himself. This can be an effective argument to make to undecided voters and something Obama has to artfully address.

  Emily Yoffe

  Accomplishment, Addresses, Voters

  "Slate: The Sarah Palin Story". The Washington Post Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. September 4, 2008.

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• It is a question in that case of breaking up one piece of art, and whether that piece of art can be as best as possible put back together. So it's an argument to say, maybe that's one of those instances, like the bust of Nefertiti, I think that should be given back [Egyptian piece currently in Neues Museum in Berlin]. It's one of those pieces you look at and think that would probably be the right thing to do.

  George Clooney

  Art, Thinking, Museums

  "The Monuments Men - George Clooney interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• There is such a torture, happily unknown to ancient tyranny, as talking a man to death. Marcus Aurelius advises to assent readily to great talkers--in hopes, I suppose, to put an end to the argument.

  Laurence Sterne

  Men, Talking, Ancient

  Laurence Sterne (1790). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Complete in Eight Volumes”, p.130

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• Ministers who threaten death and destruction employ weapons of weakness. Argument and kindness are alone effectual, flavored by the principles of Divine love.

  Hosea Ballou

  Kindness, Weakness, Principles

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• Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

  Adam Clarke

  Mean, Ideas, Clear

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• Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Middle, Conversation

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Kitchen God's Wife”, p.11, Penguin

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• As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change - that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.

  Richard Rorty

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Swings

  "Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3". Book by Richard Rorty (Introduction), March 13, 1998.

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• The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Fleeting, Endure, Written

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• O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below!

  Dante Alighieri

  Men, Wings, Anxiety

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• What is prejudice? An opinion, which is not based upon reason; a judgment, without having heard the argument; a feeling, without being able to trace from whence it came.

  Carrie Chapman Catt

  Feelings, Prejudice, Able

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