Debate Quotes

Arguing is really saying, "If you were really more like me, then I could like you better."

Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so. It is not so. It is so. It is not so.

Wise men argue causes, and fools decide them.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

The absent are easily refuted.

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right.

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.

Just as war is freedom's cost, disagreement is freedom's privilege.

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.