quotations about arguments & arguing
The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd
Much virtue in If.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself, in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
SADI
Gulistan
The quiet shaft of ridicule oftimes does more than argument.
WILLIAM SCARBOROUGH
attributed, And I Quote
Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes
Error a fault and truth discourtesy....
Calmness is a great advantage: he that lets
Another chafe, may warm him at his fire.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Church-Porch
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
JOHN MORLEY
On Compromise
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACRE
Bad Science
A dispute begun in jest ... is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Idler, No. 23
The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD
attributed, goodreads
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
Brief and bitter the debate.
ROBERT BROWNING
Hervé Riel
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
The kind of truth that can be asserted by argument had lost all glamour, all lustre, for him, seeming no more now than another aspect of that ancient urge -- much older than the desire for truth -- to command attention.
BARRY UNSWORTH
Sacred Hunger
Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be
Others will go on speaking and you will not be able to argue back
RAM MOHAN ROY
attributed, Africa Quarterly, 2006
Debate destroys despatch.
JOHN DENHAM
Of Prudence
Never maintain an argument with heat and clamour, though you think or know yourself to be in the right.
LORD CHESTERFIELD
letter, October 16, 1747
You are fond of argument, and now you fancy that I am a bag full of arguments.
SOCRATES
Theaetetus
A noisy man is always in the right.
WILLIAM COWPER
Conversations
I am not arguing with you--I am telling you.
J. MCNEILL WHISTLER
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies