quotations about arguments & arguing
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Retaliation
I've heard old sunning stagers
Say, fools for arguments use wagers.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
Though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
The best way of answering a bad argument is not to stop it, but to let it go on in its course till it leaps over the boundaries of common sense.
SYDNEY SMITH
"Spring Guns and Man Traps"
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
BRET HARTE
John Burns of Gettysburg
The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist
Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself, in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
SADI
Gulistan
And friendly free discussion, calling forth
From the fair jewel, Truth, its latent ray.
JAMES THOMSON
Liberty
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
JOHN MILTON
Areopagitica
You are fond of argument, and now you fancy that I am a bag full of arguments.
SOCRATES
Theaetetus
It's a strange truth that no matter how persuaded we might be of our own correctness, the discomfiting realization that others disagree with us causes a paralyzing inability to argue the case convincingly.
BRITTNEY RYAN
The Legend of Holly Claus
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
To strive with an equal is a doubtful thing to do; with a superior, a mad thing; with an inferior, a vulgar thing.
SENECA
De Ira
And while I at length debate and beat the bush,
There shall step in other men and catch the birds.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
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
If he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He'll bray you in a mortar.
BEN JONSON
The Alchemist
It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.
MILAN KUNDERA
Encounter
Much virtue in If.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It