Argument Quotes - Page 39

• it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.

  Nikolai Gogol

  Art, Jobs, Faces

  Letter to Zhukovsky on January 1848. "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, p. 49, 1986.

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• There is not a single argument nor a single fact that can be offered in favour of flesh eating that cannot be offered, with equal strength, in favour of cannibalism.

  Herbert M. Shelton

  Vegetarianism, Flesh Eating, Cannibalism

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• With all women gentleness is the most persuasive and powerful argument.

  Theophile Gautier

  Powerful, Persuasive, Gentleness

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• I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. It therefore seems to me that there is one and only one valid argument on which a case for giving up strategic bombing could be based, namely that it has already completed its task and that nothing now remains for the Armies to do except to occupy Germany against unorganized resistance.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  Giving Up, Army, Cities

  Letter to Sir Norman Bottomley on March 29, 1945. "Bomber Harris: The Story of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris". Book by Dudley Saward, p. 294, 1985.

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• All I can say is that laughter is my music; I would deeply suspect an argument which hadn't laughter.

  James Tiptree Jr.

  Laughter, Suspects, I Can

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• The fights I fought... cost a lot --the fight for the assault-weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress. The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the House.

  William J. Clinton

  War, Fighting, Power

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• The problem of good and evil is not the problem of good and evil, but only the problem of evil. In opposition to good there are evil characters, but there are no good characters in opposition to evil. Evil is arguable, but good is not. Therefore the Devil always wins the argument.

  Laura Riding

  Character, Winning, Evil

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• Republicans define freedom as an absence of restraints imposed by government. Democrats define freedom as an absence of necessity, which government exists to reduce. America has not moved as far as it thinks it has beyond the argument about the New Deal, when FDR insisted, "Necessitous men are not free men."

  George Will

  Party, Men, Thinking

  "Monica And Other GOP Calamities" by George Will, www.sfgate.com. February 1, 1999.

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• If any issue should unite liberals and conservatives, anyone who cares about the integrity of human achievement or respect for human accomplishment, may we not all pledge to avoid the silly censoring that can lead to a codification of Orwell's Newspeak? Consider John Milton's reasons for why good arguments are often lost: 'For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!'

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Integrity, Silly, Issues

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• While we bemoan the decline of literacy, computers discount words in favor of pictures and pictures in favor of video. While we fret about the decreasing cogency of public debate, computers dismiss linear argument and promote fast, shallow romps across the information landscape. While we worry about basic skills, we allow into the classroom software that will do a student's arithmetic or correct his spelling.

  David Gelernter

  Skills, Worry, Video

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• The skilful disputant well knows that he never has his enemy at more advantage than when, by allowing the premises, he shows him arguing wrong from his own principles.

  William Warburton

  Enemy, Principles, Arguing

  William Warburton (1837). “The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated”, p.684

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• The problem with ideology is if you got an ideology, you already got your mind made up, you know all the answers, and that makes evidence irrelevant and argument a waste of time, so you tend to govern by assertion and attack. The problem with that is that discourages thinking and gives you bad results.

  William J. Clinton

  Thinking, Giving, Mind

  "Bill Clinton talks about common good, challenging GOP". William J. Clinton's speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., www.rawstory.com. October 18, 2006.

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• An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.

  Alain de Botton

  Couple, People, Important

  Twitter post from May 13, 2013

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• Right now some people are just running around in circles and claiming that moving things to the kernel automatically makes it more stable. I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this.

  Linus Torvalds

  Running, Moving, Circles

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• If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

  Frank Herbert

  Believe, True Or False, Assumption

  Frank Herbert (1984). “Children of Dune”, Berkley

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• As I say, if we bring up religion we'll have differences; we'll have arguments; and we'll never be able to get together.

  Malcolm X

  Differences, Together, Able

  "The Ballot or The Bullet (Detroit Version)". Malcolm X's speech at a meeting sponsored by the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, April 12, 1964.

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• Change happens not just by giving the mind new arguments but also by feeding the imagination new beauties

  Timothy Keller

  Giving, Imagination, Mind

  Timothy Keller (2015). “Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism”, p.79, Penguin

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• I get in fewer arguments when I'm alone.

  Paula Poundstone

  Fewer

  FaceBook post by PAULA POUNDSTONE from Aug 11, 2013

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• It is important not to let emotions get in the way of cold, hard, calculated military planning. Emotions may win arguments, but they don't win wars.

  Kathleen Troia McFarland

  War, Winning, May

  "Secretary Kerry, Mr. Obama, emotions may win arguments, but they don't win wars" by Kathleen Troia McFarland, www.foxnews.com. August 30, 2013.

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• It is not for nothing that Skaldin in one part of his book quotes Adam Smith: we have seen that both his views and the character of his arguments in many respects repeat the theses of that
  great ideologist of the progressive bourgeoisie.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Book, Character, Views

  "The Heritage We Renounce". Collected Works, Volume 2, pp. 491 - 534, www.marxists.org.

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• Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

  Walt Whitman

  Love, Peace, Brother

  Walt Whitman “Annotated LEAVES OF GRASS with English Grammar Exercises: by Walt Whitman (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

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• Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partizans, and the contention is ever hottest on minor matters.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Matter, Suits, Causes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.550, Library of America

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• Argument is to me the air I breathe.

  Gertrude Stein

  Air, Breathe

  Written in 1895 as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College. Published as "Form and Intelligibility" in the Radcliffe Manuscripts, 1949.

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• My habit of attacking Huns dangling from their parachutes led to many arguments in the mess. Some officers, of the Eton and Sandhurst type, thought it was 'unsportsmanlike' to do it. Never having been to a public school, I was unhampered by such considerations of form. I just pointed out that there was a bloody war on, and that I intended to avenge my pals.

  James Ira Thomas Jones

  War, School, Pals

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• True gospel authority, the authority to heal and renew things and people, is not finally found in a hierarchical office, a theological argument, a perfect law, or a rational explanation. The Crucified revealed to the world that the real power that changes people and the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level.

  Richard Rohr

  Letting Go, Real, Law

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