Argument Quotes - Page 32

• Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

  Deborah Tannen

  Fighting, Views, Point Of View

  Deborah Tannen (2012). “The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue”, p.4, Ballantine Books

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• The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.

  Deborah Tannen

  Party, Thinking, Ideas

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• Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Book, Writing

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• the central argument of the backlash - that women's equality is responsible for women's unhappiness.

  Susan Faludi

  Unhappiness, Responsible, Sexism

  Susan Faludi (1991). “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”

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• the heart of the backlash argument: women are better off 'protected' than equal.

  Susan Faludi

  Heart, Sexism, Equal

  Susan Faludi (1991). “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”

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• Implements of war and subjugation are the last arguments to which kings resort.

  Patrick Henry

  Kings, War, Lasts

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• we have not been impressed with any attribute of the Senate other than its appearance and manners. We have heard the best speakers: they all fire off speeches which deal with the entire subject in general terms and which do not attempt to debate, to answer opponents' arguments or offer new points for discussion. And the speeches are constantly degenerating into empty rhetoric; they abound in quotations from well-known authors or from their own former speeches.

  Beatrice Webb

  Fire, Answers, Speech

  Beatrice Potter Webb (1963). “American diary, 1898”

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• Unlike proportionality, progression provides no principle which tells us what the relative burden of different persons ought to be the argument based on the presumed justice of progression provides no limitation, as has often been admitted by its supporters, before all incomes above a certain figure are confiscated, and those below left untaxed.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Justice, Principles, Different

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 20 : Taxation and Redistribution, 1960.

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• Argument does not soften, but rather hardens, the obdurate heart.

  Orville Dewey

  Heart, Doe

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• In too many marriage conflicts, we work too hard at winning the argument and too little at winning the heart.

  Matt Chandler

  Heart, Winning, Littles

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• sometimes I was so bored that I started arguments just to experience the rush of almost losing him.

  Lena Dunham

  Dating, Bored, Losing Him

  Lena Dunham (2014). “Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"”, p.48, Random House

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• The only person who listens to both sides of an argument is the fellow in the next apartment.

  Ruth Brown

  Next, Sides, Apartment

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• Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal.

  Marilyn vos Savant

  Gay, Perfectly Normal, Race

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• Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are the loudest when least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.

  Elihu Burritt

  Giving, Lightning, Oratory

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• Network news accustoms audiences to assertion not argument. Over time, it reinforces the notion that politics is about visceral identification and apposition, not complex problems and their solutions. ... sound bites aren't very helpful. They can tell a voter what a candidate believes, but not why. And many issues are too complex to be freeze dried into a slogan and a smile. ... What's lost in a world in which everything's an ad? Perhaps the country that created the assembly line has simply found a more efficient way to do politics.

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson

  Country, Believe, Issues

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• Even if the absence of evidence for a given god were not evidence of its absence, it would still be evidence that the belief in that god is unreasonable. That's the only proposition that any atheist of any kind has to demonstrate in order to win the argument. Because anything beyond that... is just having fun.

  Scott Clifton

  Atheist, Fun, Winning

  "God, Atheism and Evidence: A Response to Veritas48". Youtube video, www.youtube.com. January 11, 2010.

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• The mandate entails a generous synthesis of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The title requires the expert to be truly independent, keep an open mind, conduct his/her research objectively and without ideological prejudices, listen to all sides of an argument and seek the opinion of all stakeholders. The essence of an independent expert is not merely his/her expertise - which must be considered a given - but the faculty of thinking outside the box, while rigorously respecting the terms of reference laid down in the resolution establishing the mandate, and observing the code of conduct of rapporteurs.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Independent, Rights, Political

  "Recent Developments & Highlights". Message on the personal website, alfreddezayas.com. March 05, 2018.

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• The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Men, Land, Lightning

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• I was an adult before I began to learn that there is a difference between a conversation and an argument.

  Marion Dane Bauer

  Differences, Adults, Conversation

  Marion Dane Bauer (1995). “A Writer's Story: From Life to Fiction”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It is an easy thing to call names; any fool is equal to that ... and the weapon of vituperation is generally used by those who lack brains for argument or are upon the wrong side.

  Martha Finley

  Names, Brain, Weapons

  Martha Finley (2012). “Elsie's Motherhood”, p.68, tredition

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• suicide is the ultimate 'one-up,' as it were, the accusation that brooks no defense, the argument won at last.

  Joanne Greenberg

  Suicide, Defense, Lasts

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• Don't compliment me in the middle of an argument. It won't make me stammer or blush, and it just makes you look desperate.

  Suzanne Enoch

  Looks, Compliment, Desperate

  Suzanne Enoch (2011). “A Beginner's Guide to Rakes”, p.195, Macmillan

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• How many times have we come away from an argument wishing we had said and done something different?

  Leonard Nimoy

  Wish, Different, Done

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• Yet the most pervasive error one encounters in contemporary arguments about belief in God-especially, but not exclusively, on the atheist side-is the habit of conceiving of God simply as some very large object or agency within the universe, or perhaps alongside the universe, a being among other beings, who differs from all other beings in magnitude, power, and duration, but not ontologically, and who is related to the world more or less as a craftsman is related to an artifact.

  David Bentley Hart

  Atheist, Errors, Agency

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• Do I wish that things were more orderly in Washington and rational and people listened to the best arguments and compromised and operated in a more thoughtful and organized fashion? Absolutely. But when you look at history that's been the exception rather than the norm.

  Barack Obama

  Fashion, Thoughtful, People

  "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. December 30, 2012.

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