“There's this notion that Republicans are the party of Jesus and the Democrats are the Godless party. Let's be clear for a minute. One party wants to give health insurance to the poor and the weak and the dispossessed, and one party wants to take away that health insurance and give tax breaks to rich people. You tell me: which side would Jesus fall on that argument?” PeopleWantGivingFallJesusSidesPoorPartyBreakRichClearMinutesRepublicanTaxesArgumentWeakDemocratNotionRich PeopleTax Breaks Author:Reza Aslan
“Only in the 20th century, artists started taking the study of perception in a more humane way. They were thinking about the eye as being an instrument, the whole body as being a visual instrument. That sort of gave way a little bit with Cartesian - the "Cogito ergo sum" argument. It's not, "I think therefore I exist." It's, "I feel therefore I think therefore I exist."” ThinkingWayFeelsLittlesWholeBodyEyeArtistBitsStudyCenturyPerceptionLittle BitArgumentInstrumentsVisuals20th CenturyHumaneHumane Way Author:Vik Muniz
“Artists used to argue about art for art's sake versus social realism etc, and now it's like the most dominate argument is related to "art for the market's sake." It's a necessity, somewhat, for some people.” PeopleArtUsedArtistSocialArgumentSakeArguingRelatedEtcRealismVersus Author:Lee Klein
“The issue of redistribution of resources and wealth needs to resolved systemically, but in the meantime but there are individual spots you can occupy. There are things that you can do on a daily basis that will make a difference in moving the needle in individual lives. When we look at the mentoring of young black kids, for instance, the number-one mentor group is white women. I think after that maybe it's black women, and then white men, and then black men. We can make all kinds of arguments about that.” ThinkingMenNeedsLooksKindKidsMovingYoungIndividualBlackCan DoDifferencesWealthWhiteNumbersIssuesGroupsHe ManResourcesArgumentBasesAll KindsInstanceSpotsMaking A DifferenceMentorWhite ManBlack WomenNeedlesMentoringIndividual Life Author:Michael Eric Dyson
“I do not teach history in my films. I don't have a linear point of view or argument. What I do in my films is to live the human experience; human, whether in Nazareth or anywhere else in the world.” WorldHumansFilmViewsTeachArgumentPoint Of ViewHuman ExperienceLinearNazareth Author:Elia Suleiman
“The recent past is full of diverse examples of writers - Mahfouz in Egypt, Pamuk in Turkey, and more interestingly, Pasternak in the Soviet Union - who have conducted their arguments with their societies and its political arrangements through their art in subtle, oblique ways. They didn't always have the license to make bold pronouncements about freedom, democracy, Islam, and liberalism, but they exerted another kind of moral authority through their work.” WayKindArtPastPoliticalMoralDemocracyExampleAuthorityArgumentUnionsIslamLiberalismSubtleSovietDiverseArrangementsEgyptSoviet UnionLicenseTurkeysMoral AuthorityRecent Past Author:Pankaj Mishra
“As cities get more dense, you have people saying, "Why would you have an urban farm when you could have affordable housing on that property instead?" So there's an argument against it. Another huge thing is there's a brain drain toward growing marijuana. You know, if someone has a green thumb in an urban area, especially in places like Washington or Oregon where it's now totally legal, why wouldn't you just grow pot?” PeopleBrainArgumentPropertyPotMarijuanaUrbanAffordable Author:Novella Carpenter
“My argument for that is: Why not create urban farms that are like parks, on public land? There actually is a park that I see as a model: Dover Street Park in Oakland. They took this park that has swings and playground-type things and turned it into a farm. There's not chickens, just annual vegetables interspersed with fruit trees. And it's super cool because you see people playing with their kids and then they go pick raspberries and some greens for dinner.” PeopleKidsTreeArgumentUrban Author:Novella Carpenter
“A lot of times, candidates for office, especially incumbents, seem to get drawn into their opponents' arguments, and fighting on their turf, because you want to defend yourself. That's wrong. Fight on your own turf. Make them come to you. Make them explain why they don't agree with your position. I think that a lot of times, too many liberals, progressives, lose because they're afraid to really stand up for what they believe in.” ThinkingBelieveFightingOfficeArgumentAgreeTurf Author:Tom Harkin
“Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.In my new book, I open with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld. In October 2001, he said of Afghanistan: "It's not a quagmire." Ten years later there are 150,000 Western troops there.” BookEnoughDifficultImpossibleArgumentOkayWesternFocusedAfghanistanGet InvolvedOctoberPersuasiveQuagmire Author:Michael Hastings
“The humanitarian argument is so selective I find it difficult to swallow. It's not even so much about the choice as to where we should get involved and where we shouldn't. The minute you start arming people in these conflict zones, like Iraq and Afghanistan, things don't go as expected.” PeopleChoicesDifficultConflictArgumentHumanitarianZoneAfghanistanGet Involved Author:Michael Hastings
“I wrote my own first book about the defense of television as an art form in 1992. It was harder to make the argument then. Now it seems absolutely a given. You can argue about when the Platinum Age Of Television begins, but I don't think that anybody can argue that it's not here.” ThinkingArtBookAgeArgumentArguing Author:David Bianculli
“In general, I think every novel is a political novel, in that every novel is an argument about how the world works, who has power, who has a voice, what we should care about. But political novels can be boringly polemical if they end up being too black and white, too one dimensional, like war is bad, killing people is wrong.” PeopleThinkingWorldWarCarePoliticalBlackNovelArgumentKillingBlack And White Author:Micah Perks
“There is a difference between being a political force, or a political apparent force or a potential force, and between a real discourse or a real argument.” RealPoliticalArgument Author:Jay Rockefeller
“The Republicans, in the various arguments, repeat exactly the same phrases one after another, with no sense of embarrassment, no sense of shame, no sense of intellectual integrity.” IntegrityRepublicanIntellectualArgumentShameVariousEmbarrassment Author:Jay Rockefeller
“I am a lifelong career artist, which itself is a bit of a miracle. It's really challenging to be a career artist. I would say that the argument for grant funding is not only did my movie do some social good - hopefully it opened people's eyes - but you created a working artist. I'm hiring cinematographers, I'm hiring production designers, I'm hiring producers.” EyeArtistChallengesArgumentMiracleProducersHopefullyDesignerLifelongHiring Author:Kimberly Peirce
“Europe is sort of like the Soviet Union in the '30s and '40s. There was an argument, is it reformable or not? There is a feeling, and I think it's correct, that the European Union, the eurozone, and the euro, is not reformable, as a result of the Lisbon treaties and the other treaties that have created the euro. Europe has to be taken apart in order to be put together not on a right-wing, neoliberal basis, but on a more social basis.” ThinkingFeelingsTogetherTakenArgumentSovietSoviet UnionEuropean UnionEuro Author:Michael Hudson
“It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.” WorldInterestingArgumentOneselfPositive AttitudeQuarrels Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Needless to say, banks and bondholders do not want to promote any arguments explaining the limits to how much can be paid without pushing economies into depression.” EconomyArgument Author:Michael Hudson
“When you're a man, you're often in situations where you have to decide how far you're going to go in an argument. How big is the other guy? All this stuff that girls don't have to worry about as much, because that's not part of the equation.” MenGuyGirlSituationWorryArgumentOther GuysThat Girl Author:Kenneth Lonergan
“I'm pretty critical, but I'm also pretty good at letting go once it's done. There's this existential argument that comes in, at some point, when you're over-thinking the songwriting process. There's no guarantee that the more time you spend or the more you concentrate on certain aspects that that's going to produce a better result, especially in the arts. Some of the most brilliant things that someone might do could happen in three minutes because it's something that just occurs to them.” ArtDoneLetting GoArgumentBrilliantSongwritingExistentialWriting Process Author:Chris Cornell
“What it was like to kiss Matt Damon? You know, it doesn't matter, does it, if it's a man or a woman. It's a kiss. We had to show affection in some places, love, passion in other places. A kiss is just a kiss. I mean, we'd have our fun. You know, "Matt, what flavour lip gloss would you like me to wear today?" When I see the movie I'm so proud that a few minutes go by and I forget that it's Matt and I, and halfway through I forget it's two guys. The arguments sound the same as arguments a guy has with his wife.” MenMeanTodayGuyPassionFunForgetWifeProudKissingArgumentAffectionForget ItHalfwayDamonLip Gloss Author:Michael Douglas
“I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.” ThinkingBelieveBookFailingEvidenceArgumentRationalIrrationalRationality Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Tolerance is an essential value in the modern world, and we have daily reminders of how awful the alternatives to it are. And despite its paradoxical flavor, there are many good arguments - moral, prudential, and epistemic - in favor of tolerance, and none that I know of against it.” WorldValuesMoralModernArgumentToleranceParadoxical Author:Samuel Scheffler
“People mistake self-love for thinking they must always like what they see in the mirror - and yes, of course, that is the goal; that all depends on perspective - but my argument is that you can still have self-love while wanting to make progress or improve things. The main issue is that we attach too much to an idea of what our perfect body may be or what self-love should be. But that's the issue. There is no right or wrong. We can love ourselves and feel bloated. We can love ourselves but feel uncomfortable in our skin. We are a work in progress and human and won't always feel amazing.” PeopleThinkingGoalPerfectMistakeProgressPerspectiveArgumentSkinsUncomfortableWork In Progress Author:Danielle Tabor
“Never trust anyone who has no doubts. And I'm not talking about scepticism either: scepticism can be a healthy thing. You can have an argument with someone who's a sceptic. When I say 'cynic', I mean someone who has given up, and they want you to give up too, so it makes them feel better about themselves.” GivingMeanDoubtHealthyGiving UpArgumentFeel BetterNever TrustScepticismScepticNever Trust Anyone Author:Billy Bragg
“Even if you're trying to remain objective, even if you're trying not to mount any campaigns or endorse anything, when you cover an issue you are at least encouraging people to think about all the possibilities and if you're not covering political reform, electoral reform, you can write stories about them that don't say we must do this but just educate people on the fact that there are various advocates who are tugging us in that direction, that can present the arguments of those advocates, and I do think that's an issue we for some reason completely turned away from.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingReasonPoliticalPossibilityArgumentVariousEducate Author:Frank Bruni
“I try not to make political arguments personal. It doesn't help and it switches a lot of people off. The real questions: Will we have peace? Will we have justice? Will we have pensions? Will we have free education? Will we have public services? .... those are the sort of things which interest me. I don't think that having a go at individuals really helps get your point across apart from anything else.” PeopleThinkingTryingRealHelpingPoliticalIndividualInterestJusticeArgumentPublic ServicePension Author:Tony Benn
“I'm a big believer in you make your argument to everybody, and you do it in a way that is real and very candid. Even if people don't agree with you, they appreciate that you're telling them what you believe and they know that you care about them. That's I think a very important part of it that sometimes gets missed, is that people will be OK with you saying something they're not totally on-board with as long as they know that you believe it because you want to help them. That means you've got to care about everybody.” PeopleThinkingBelieveMeanLongImportantRealSometimesHelpingCareArgumentAppreciateAgreeBeliever Author:Jason Kander
“Wildlife was the only thing we've written together with Paul Dano. It's based on a book by this author Richard Ford, who just published a memoir about his family that's really wonderful. Paul fell in love with his book, and we optioned it ourselves, and he took a first pass at writing it. He asked me for notes, and then our note session devolved into an argument really quickly.” WritingBookTogetherWonderfulArgumentMemoir Author:Zoe Kazan
“Trump will not respond to reasoned argument. He will not be held accountable for the things he said. All you can do is point and laugh. Because the devil cannot abide mockery.” LaughingDevilArgumentMockery Author:Stephen Colbert
“Every worldview has its ambiguities - debatable elements that people simply will not see to eye on. There's nothing wrong with that as long as the disagreement is principled and dignified. I actually think that arguments - as opposed to quarrels - are good things because they're the best way to figure out what's true. Share your reasons, listen carefully to each other, be nice, and may the best idea win.” PeopleThinkingLongReasonEyeWinningNiceShareArgumentGood ThingsBeing NiceAmbiguityWorldviewDisagreement Author:Greg Koukl
“I really think that everything that's known about Hillary has been dissected, rehashed. For some people that is an argument that she would be the better candidate against McCain.” PeopleThinkingArgumentMccain Author:Maria Echaveste
“It is important to know that criticism is a natural part of life and speaking out, and to know that a certain amount of the criticism you receive may have nothing to do with you, your argument, or the way you are articulating yourself. Some criticism online and in the physical world is neither constructive, nor balanced or intelligent. Some of it is abuse.” WorldImportantNaturalArgumentCriticismAbuseIntelligentOnlineSpeaking Out Author:Tara Moss
“Historically, the argument is we stole the country from the Indians. America stole the labor of African Americans for over 200 years under slavery. America took half of Mexico by force in the Mexican War. American foreign policy, the progressives say it's based on theft. Why? Because look, America is very active in the Middle East. Why? The Middle East has oil. Notice that America doesn't get involved in Haiti or Rwanda because they don't have any oil.” WarCountryPolicyArgumentLaborSlaveryAfrican AmericanForeign PolicyMexicanGet InvolvedRwanda Author:Dinesh D'Souza
“Our allies expect not only a commitment to democratic values from us, leadership on those values, including respect and equality and - but they also expect stability. They expect knowing that the president of the United States is not set off by petty arguments and easily slings invective. That leads you down a really, really bad path.” ValuesPresidentPathCommitmentArgumentDemocraticStability Author:Bridget Johnson
“From my vantage point, when I'm criticized in a way that I can hear what's being said - i.e., the issues - I'm more likely to listen and respond. A lot of the personal email I receive consists of name calling; I'll write back and say: Talk to me like I'm a person and you're a person and tell me where you disagree with me. I can't tell you how that turns people upside down. More often than not they write back with an apology and a reasoned argument.” PeopleWritingArgumentDisagreeApologyUpside DownTalk To MeName Calling Author:Steven Petrow
“The advent of DNA testing, and the number of convictions thrown out, has confirmed that we've put LOTS of innocent people to death. There need not be any other argument against death penalty.” PeopleArgumentConvictionInnocentDeath PenaltyAdvent Author:Gene Weingarten
“There's no point going to a country which is torturing people to ask them to stop if they can point out that the United States is doing it too. It enormously weakens the argument. Back in the early days of the Bush administration, PEN made a decision that we would try and make human rights issues and civil rights issues in this country part of the priority, and not just international issues, which had more or less been the priority up until then.” PeopleTryingCountryDecisionArgumentHuman RightsPrioritiesCivil RightsPens Author:Salman Rushdie
“A majority of Trump's voters were in favor of staying in the Paris Agreement. And if you look at what's really happening in the economy, the economic argument actually is very strongly in favor of the Paris Agreement. There are now twice as many jobs in the solar industry as in the coal industry. Solar jobs are growing 17 times faster than other jobs in the U.S.” EconomyEconomicArgumentVery Strong Author:Al Gore
“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.” WorldReasonDoneDifficultTrainingFemaleArgumentRidiculousEmployeeHiring Author:Amy Nauiokas
“What we're doing now, is to try to eradicate the limited notion of how people are interacting with each other through hyper-racialized ideas. A lot of it deal with, as an example, genre. If I ask you to visualize a trap musician or a hip-hop musician, you'll see one thing. If I say visualize a western classical musician, you'll see a very different thing. A lot of how music is disseminated to us is hyper-racialized. It's not something that we think about all the time, but if you take a minute to look back, it's why you get this argument when there's a white rapper.” PeopleThinkingTryingDifferentMusicianMusic IsArgumentWesternRapperClassical MusicRap Music Author:Christian Scott
“I tend to believe, when you're in a relationship, if you don't fight, it's not a real relationship. You have to have arguments and tensions, otherwise I don't believe it. My mother always said, "If you don't fight, you can't have a marriage. You have to fight for each other. If you don't know how to fight, relationships tend not to last."” BelieveRealMotherFightingArgumentTensionReal Relationship Author:Richard LaGravenese
“Anyone should be able to express themselves in any context. Obviously, there are arguments against appropriation, but it's one thing when someone is doing something for satire or making fun of a culture, but if they respects the tenets of the culture and they want to be a part of that, what could be more beautiful than that?” BeautifulCultureFunArgumentSatire Author:Christian Scott
“I think the mother of all arguments against eating meat now is the climate change argument. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and when we eat meat we wipe away many of the good things that we do when we try to create greener and more sustainable practices in the rest of our lives. So if you add the concern for climate change with other concerns that were there. I think the case for vegetarianism is pretty overwhelming.” ThinkingTryingMotherPowerfulEatingConcernArgumentGood ThingsClimate ChangeGasOverwhelming Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think people resist feminism because they're scared. I think for women, they're scared of being picked on or of being called out. I hear from a lot of young women, you know, I don't want to call myself a feminist because I don't want to get in an argument with someone. And it's just not cool; like it's not a cool thing to be associated with. There's no benefit to saying that you're a feminist.” PeopleThinkingFeminismArgumentScaredFeministYoung Women Author:Jessica Valenti
“You can win as long as you chose your battles. You can win more arguments then you might think as a writer, even though you legally have no recourse, and your script can get muddied and altered in any way possible. You can use reason, logic, and passion to argue persuasively for a case in your favor. So what I've learned is to just basically not buckle - not be belligerent, not be angry, not throw fits, but just not buckle.” ThinkingLongReasonPassionWinningFitBattleArgumentLogicArguingYou Can Win Author:Shane Black
“The first rules about Islamic law weren't even written down for a century and a half after the Prophet's death, and it was another five centuries, half a millennium, before they assumed anything like a definitive form. So there have always been huge arguments over what Islamic law actually requires. There are four main schools of law in Sunni thought and there's a separate school of law in Shia thought, so these arguments do take place.” SchoolArgumentIslamic Author:Sadakat Kadri
“Shari'a is not just the Qur'an, you see Shari'a is comprised according to all the doctrines. There's consensus and analogy - argument by analogy. These are the four components in the Shari'a. An orthodox Sunni would not accept that the Shari'a was simply comprised of the Qur'an itself and actually there are people who say that it's heretical to believe that. They have to say that because if they don't say that then they would have to accept that, for example, stoning is not a punishment which appears in the Qur'an - it doesn't.” PeopleBelieveAcceptingArgumentOrthodoxConsensus Author:Sadakat Kadri
“There were periods in Islamic history when things like apostasy and blasphemy were made punishable. So you know it kind of depends - there's no argument, quite apart from the question of the divine or otherwise nature of the Qur'an, that huge swathes of Islamic law are man-made. Clerics here - in maintaining their power, will often try to elide that and say "Well no, actually this isn't man-made at all. Stoning is part of the divine revelation." It isn't in the Qur'an but the way this has been done over the years is to take the Hadith.” TryingKindDoneDivineArgumentIslamicRevelationsBlasphemy Author:Sadakat Kadri