quotations about arguments & arguing
If ifs and ands were pots and pans
There'd be no work for the tinkers.
ROBERT BLACKHOUSE PEACOCK
A glossary of the dialect of the hundred of Lonsdale
In argument
Similes are like songs in love:
They must describe; they nothing prove.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Alma
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
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
BRET HARTE
John Burns of Gettysburg
Much virtue in If.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.
WILKIE COLLINS
The Woman in White
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
And while I at length debate and beat the bush,
There shall step in other men and catch the birds.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
There are two sides to every question.
PROTAGORAS
Protagoras
We may convince others by our arguments; but we can only persuade them by their own.
JOSEPH JOUBERT
Pensées
To make the weaker argument the stronger.
PLATO
Apology of Socrates
Argument is a gift of Nature.
CHARLES DICKENS
Barnaby Rudge
So high at last the contest rose,
From words they almost came to blows.
JAMES MERRICK
The Chameleon
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
In arguing, answer your opponent's earnest with jest and his jest with earnest.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself, in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
SADI
Gulistan
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
JOHN MORLEY
On Compromise
A noisy man is always in the right.
WILLIAM COWPER
Conversations
Bombs to settle arguments, the order of the boot
Can you hear them crying in the rubble of Beirut?
THE SPECIALS
"War Crimes"
Last night we had an argument
Oh, oh, yes we did
Although baby, the things I said
I never meant
SMOKEY ROBINSON
"We've Come Too Far to End It Now"