quotations about arguments & arguing
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.
WILKIE COLLINS
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The Woman in White
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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"
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To make the weaker argument the stronger.
PLATO
Apology of Socrates
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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
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Argument is a gift of Nature.
CHARLES DICKENS
Barnaby Rudge
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I've heard old sunning stagers
Say, fools for arguments use wagers.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
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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
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Much virtue in If.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
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Slow to argue, but quick to act.
BRET HARTE
John Burns of Gettysburg
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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
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The tree of knowledge blasted by dispute,
Produces saples leaves instead of fruit.
JOHN DENHAM
Progress of Learning
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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
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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
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We should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts.
MYSON
attributed, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
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We may convince others by our arguments; but we can only persuade them by their own.
JOSEPH JOUBERT
Pensées
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So high at last the contest rose,
From words they almost came to blows.
JAMES MERRICK
The Chameleon
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I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with comprehension.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
speech to the House of Commons
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One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd
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Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself, in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
SADI
Gulistan
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You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
JOHN MORLEY
On Compromise
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