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
If he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He'll bray you in a mortar.
BEN JONSON
The Alchemist
The quiet shaft of ridicule oftimes does more than argument.
WILLIAM SCARBOROUGH
attributed, And I Quote
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
BRET HARTE
John Burns of Gettysburg
Argument is a gift of Nature.
CHARLES DICKENS
Barnaby Rudge
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd
And friendly free discussion, calling forth
From the fair jewel, Truth, its latent ray.
JAMES THOMSON
Liberty
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
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
JOHN MORLEY
On Compromise
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
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACRE
Bad Science
Debate destroys despatch.
JOHN DENHAM
Of Prudence
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.
C.S. FORESTER
The African Queen
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
In all disputes, so much as there is of passion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose.
THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici
This is no time nor fitting place to mar
The mirthful meeting with a wordy war.
LORD BYRON
Lara
We may convince others by our arguments; but we can only persuade them by their own.
JOSEPH JOUBERT
Pensées
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