quotations about arguments & arguing
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Retaliation
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"
Though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
And while I at length debate and beat the bush,
There shall step in other men and catch the birds.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
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
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
I've heard old sunning stagers
Say, fools for arguments use wagers.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
JOHN MILTON
Areopagitica
In argument
Similes are like songs in love:
They must describe; they nothing prove.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Alma
Let thy tongue tang with arguments of state.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
J.R. LOWELL
Democracy and Other Addresses
Where we desire to be informed, 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgements below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.
THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici
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
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
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.
WILKIE COLLINS
The Woman in White
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
BRET HARTE
John Burns of Gettysburg
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life of Samuel Johnson
You may say, I am hot; I say I am not,
Only warm, as the subject on which I am got.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The Famous Speechmaker
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
The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist