T Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with T. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“The argument could be made that the word 'hero' is overused. I do not think, however, that this is the case when referring to teachers.”
“The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.”
“The argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.”
“The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals.”
“The argument for collectivism is simple; free market is not.”
“The argument for intelligent design basically depends on saying, 'You haven't answered every question with evolution,'... Well, guess what? Science can't answer every question”
“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”
“The argument for the free market is a complicated and sophisticated one and depends on demonstration of secondary effects. I have confidence market efficiency will win out.”
“The Argument from Design
Based on Russell's treatment of this argument, we assume that Russel expected that the world's creation, by design, had to be perfect. But, as with all other arguments, we must establish what design and perfection mean. If we do not clearly define what design is and what perfection is, we are applying our judgments to something either undefined or loosely defined. Evolutionary theory, be it Darwin’s theory, cannot be proof of a bad design of the world. Anomalies or shortages in the world are not proof of a bad design. Imperfections are needed in the world and serve a higher purpose. Let’s say that God if he existed, wanted to create the perfect world. This perfect world would be sterile. In the perfect world, there would be no cosmic hierarchies, lows, and highs, enough friction to sustain life as something whose purpose is not to be made perfect from the beginning but to seek perfection, to make “progress” in myriad ways toward the main purpose which is life itself. Life, by definition, is not perfect. Perfect life is not a real life.
The purpose of design is not to predict a Ku Klux Klan or the fascists and eliminate them from the design before any creation but to put the “engine” of the vast Universe in motion, to enable the world to seek its paths freely, without a God playing dice. That is where determinism and free will come together to create a sensible world.
Design does not mean playing dice, nor necessarily creating something new, but the creator offers himself an exit to exist in an ever-new world, a new form with meaning. We also may say that in the Universe or Omniverse, beyond our knowledge, there can be not only thirty-six (to make a comparison with dice) but a googolplex of universes (dice), and the possibility for combinations is infinite.
“Impossibility to prove God” is not proof that God does not exist. Russel would argue that the burden of proof is on the person making a claim, but the world itself is proof of God’s existence. The solution to this enigma is to recognize that the world is God. The problem is not belief or disbelief, first cause, natural law or good or bad design, or any other argument for the existence or against the existence of God; the problem is in our understanding and consensus about the idea of what God is. Argumentation or proof can never be shifted to only one side. Something so obvious as the world does not need proof but understanding that the world is also, in its deepest nature, God itself.
We can fight as long as we want, but if we fight from different positions for the sake of different positions, we are not going anywhere. God is not the same for the theist or the deist. Christian God is so far from Spinoza’s idea about God. The majority of people who are atheists today are atheists more in revolt against nominal, official religions and not necessarily in revolt against God if this God was better defined or approached from an angle unaffected by religions.”
Source: ABSOLUTE
“The argument from design is ultimately an appeal to miraculous causes, i.e., causes that do not, and cannot, occur in the natural course of events. This is why an explanation via design is not a legitimate alternative to scientific and other naturalistic modes of explanation. To refer to a miraculous cause is to refer to something that is inherently unknowable, and this sanctuary of ignorance explains nothing at all. However much it may soothe the imagination of the ignorant, it does nothing to satisfy the understanding of a rational person.”
Source: Why Atheism?
“The argument from design stands or falls on whether it can be demonstrated that some aspect of the universe such as its origin or biological life could not have come about naturally. The burden of proof is ... on the supernaturalist to demonstrate that something from outside nature must be introduced to explain the data.”
Source: Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe
“The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist.”
Source: The God Delusion
“The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.”
Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
“The argument from poor design in its strict and simplest sense means that the World (Universe) and everything in it is not perfect. To better understand and answer this argument, it is essential to know that the world and everything in it were neither made nor came into being to be perfect as we understand perfection. With the more “perfect” design (to use this term for the argument), conditionally speaking, evolution would either not be possible or would be limited in proportion to its potential.”
Source: ABSOLUTE
“The argument goes like this: even if public grazing contributes almost nothing to local economies and national food production, it nonetheless supports "an important western lifestyle and the rural west's social and cultural fabric." If we keep ranchers working on the range, on the big wide-open of the public domain, we ensure the historical continuity of a "custom" that has gone on for close to 150 years.”
Source: This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West
“The argument goes something like this; "I refuse to prove that I never cheated on you," she said, by quoting "proof repudiates true love, and without love I am nothing.”
“The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“The argument goes that the pay gap only exists because of women's 'choices' of work type, hours, and child related career breaks, effectively making it a myth. But research shows that while those are factors, they don't account for the whole gap, suggesting that discrimination certainly plays a role as well.”
“The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning.”
“The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today.
That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.)
Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species.”
Source: Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
“The argument holds no water at all, not even a thimbleful.”
“The argument is at an end.”
“the argument is, if God is all-good and God is all-powerful how could any of these things happen, there's an inconsistency in your Christian worldview. The intellectual answer is there is no logical inconsistency because not only do we believe God is all-good and all-powerful, we also believe there's a morally sufficient reason for everything God does.
That's one of our presuppositions, as Abraham said, shall not the Judge of all the earth do right [Genesis 18:25]. We believe that everything God does He does well for a good reason, that He is wiser than us, and even when things look tragic we know that God will bring good and His glory out of tragedy”
“The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind.”
Source: How (Not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church
“The argument is not between adding features and simplicity, between adding capability and usability. The real issue is about design: designing things that have the power required for the job while maintaining understandabili ty, the feeling of control, and the pleasure of accomplishment.”
“The argument is the weakest weapon in the war of words.”
Source: Quantraz
“The argument must begin from a position that generates acceptance or approval.”
Source: How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Every Day
“The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former.”
Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
“The argument of Alcidamas: Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.”
Source: Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
“The argument of danger only applies to those who live in relative safety.”
Source: The Collected Edition: The power and the glory
“The Argument of his Book
I sing of Brooks, of Blossomes, Birds, and Flowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July-Flowers.
I sing of May-poles, Hock-carts, Wassails, Wakes,
Of Bride-grooms, Brides, and of their Bridall-cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love, and have Accesse
By these, to sing of cleanly-Wantonnesse.
I sing of Dewes, of Raines, and piece by piece
Of Balme, of Oyle, of Spice, and Amber-Greece.
I sing of Times trans-shifting; and I write
How Roses first came Red, and Lillies White.
I write of Groves, of Twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairie-King.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.”
Source: Selected poems
“The argument of socialists, that people really want to share, beyond a reasonable level of charity, is rubbish, though it is espoused by a lot of rich, pious hypocrites who want to share only enough to avoid widespread starvation, mob violence, and government seizure of more of their incomes.”
“The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.”
“The argument of the strongest is always the best.”
“The argument of those who are being criticized at any time, the civil rights movement forward, the anti-war movement forward, is, it's always outside agitators doing it.”
“The argument on the other side of special rights is completely bogus. It's bogus because you could make exactly the same claim about racial or ethnic or religious minorities.”
“The argument that 'boys will be boys' actually carries the profoundly anti-male implication that we should expect bad behavior from boys and men. The assumption is that they are somehow not capable of acting appropriately, or treating girls and women with respect.”
Source: The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and and How All Men Can Help
“The argument that a particular project will be "self-financing" is usually the first refuge of politicians defending the indefensible.”
Source: The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America's Fabric
“The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.”
“The argument that coming into existence is always a harm can be summarized as follows: Both good and bad things happen only to those who exist. However, there is a crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things. The absence of bad things, such as pain, is good even if there is nobody to enjoy that good, whereas the absence of good things, such as pleasure, is bad only if there is somebody who is deprived of these good things. The implication of this is that the avoidance of the bad by never existing is a real advantage over existence, whereas the loss of certain goods by not existing is not a real disadvantage over never existing.”
Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence
“The argument that it is difficult to find women is complete BS. Any bank will tell you that the No. 1 employee they lose the most money on is the mid-tier female they bring on when they are 22 who leaves in her mid to late 30s. These are women they spend a ton of money training, and a ton of money attracting and hiring. And then they lose them. And they lose them for many reasons. They're going to other sectors, other industries. So for us in the financial-services world to say we can't find women is ridiculous. They are out there. We've done it here at Anthemis.”
“The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight.”
“The argument that normal adaptive functioning in a sick world can itself be considered pathological is an old one (Fromm, 2001), but not well made and still not taken seriously. We do not have a good antonym for depression, mania being one of the closest but not conveying any sense that a widespread upbeat mentality might be considered pathological; or that delusional denial of widespread malaise might be taken as something less jocular than Pollyannaism. It is inconceivable that the psychotherapy and psychiatric professionals themselves would in effect declare, ‘the baseline for human beings including ourselves is one of pathological self-deceit and illusion serving to keep us functional in an insane world’. Nor are we likely to read the corollary of this – ‘individuals experiencing chronic dysthymia who hold a negative worldview and who are known as depressive realists, might be considered less pathological and more mentally healthy than others’.”
Source: Depressive Realism: Interdisciplinary perspectives
“The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.”
Source: The Essential Chomsky
“The argument that somehow we've got to get rid of minority scholarships so that we can have a free and fair America implies that we have a colorblind society where minorities are equal in their pursuit of funds to go to school.”
“The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.”
“The argument that the countries use for the sheer increase in Muslim doctors is the sheer increase in the Muslim population. In for example Birmingham, England where a lot of these guys came from, where one of these plots was hatched, it's up to 30% of the population. Maybe that's the problem?”
“The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.”
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers.”
Source: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”