Best argument & humans Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.”

Source: The Summa Theologica: Complete Edition

“Anne Pitkin's poems have such lyrical sweep, such a sensitive eye for the natural world as it touches the human, that reading Winter Arguments is like seeing a landscape or, better, a richly realized painting of a landscape dotted with figures. But that would leave out their music, which would be a loss. This is a wise and graceful book by a well-traveled woman who knows how to confront deep feeling and frame it to make it all the more intense.”

“I am a believer in liberty . That is my religion to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right because it is his right but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.”

Giving Humans May Human Beings Answers Liberty Speech Argument Claims Absolutes Believer Doctrine Urges Grants Freedom Of Speech Absolute Freedom

Book:Miscellany

Source: Miscellany

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”

Writing Mind Humans Facts Stories Shows Seems Able Lasts Values Belief Results Attitude Fiction Study Psychology Effects Serious Evidence Argument Decades Human Mind Persuasive

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.”

“The classical argument for why a supposedly decent and moral creature like Homo sapiens can mistreat and even extirpate other species rests upon an extreme position in a continuum. The Cartesian tradition, formulated explicitly in the seventeenth century, but developed in "folk" and other versions throughout human history no doubt, holds that other animals are little more than unfeeling machines, with only humans enjoying "consciousness," however defined.”

“If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education. It has intrinsic and indestructible merits. It holds the welfare of mankind in its embrace, as the protecting arms of a mother hold her infant to her bosom. The very ignorance and selfishness which obstructs its path are the strongest arguments for its promotion, for it furnishes the only adequate means for their removal.”

Source: Thoughts

“Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views.”

Humans Littles Philosophy Easy Views Argument Weak Satisfaction Limitation Triumph Opponents Score

Author:Peter Singer

“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.”

Humans Lying Modern Human Nature Argument Function Method Competition Psychological Advertising Instance Propaganda Experts Confused Insult Substitutes Articles

Book:The Works of George Santayana

Source: The Works of George Santayana

“It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.”

“As more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and criticism improves democracy.”

People Thinking Way Writing Mind Humans Has Beens Ideas Courses Easy Democracy Issues Products Citizens Argument Criticism Harder Proven Misguided Proven Wrong

Book:Free Culture

Source: Free Culture

“As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism -- unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom.”

Humans Long Government Realizing Human Beings Deals Argument Logical Imperfection Imperfect Stopping Totalitarianism Extending Price Of Freedom

Book:Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

Source: Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

“Forget the Bible, the greatest argument against human evolution is a YouTube comment thread.”

Humans Funny Forget Evolution Argument Comment Thread Youtube Human Evolution

Author:Damien Fahey

“There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?”

Source: History in Our Time

“It's easy to sell good news like this, and the authors confidently rely on classic fallacious arguments. They argue by declaration, which is what makes the books so amusing. In matter-of-fact, authoritative tones, the authors tell us how plants and human beings exchange energy - or they describe what angels look like, whether or how they're sexed, how they communicate with human beings, and how they differ from ghosts. Readers might be expected to wonder, How do they know?”

“Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal.”

People Ifs Way Humans Dies Race Cases Tomorrow Gay Normal Female Argument Originals Males Starting Human Race Flaws Substitutes Defective Perfectly Normal

Author:Marilyn vos Savant

“Being in relationship is not living in a fantasyland and don`t think that everything's going to be perfect all the time. You will go through phases where you're just not getting along. You're not communicating well. That's going to happen, and it's going to feel impossible to you sometimes. It might not even make sense to you sometimes. Arguments are normal. You have to be patient and sit through that and remember that this is a part of human communication and interaction. You're going to have these conflicts with anyone. It's not necessarily just that person.”

“It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.”

Ifs Humans Doe Art Philosophy Violence Argument Criticism Bullets Rationality Forbidden Clauses Ultras Counterarguments

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.”

Humans Littles Belief Existence Argument Catholic Bother Superstitions Clergy Plausible Human Intelligence

Author:H. L. Mencken

“There is indeed something deeply wrong with a person who lacks principles, who has no moral core. There are, likewise, certainly values that brook no compromise, and I would count among them integrity, fairness, and the avoidance of cruelty. But I have never accepted the argument that principle is compromised by judging each situation on its own merits, with due appreciation of the idiosyncrasy of human motivation and fallibility.”

“The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight.”

People Should Humans May Facts Moral Source Birth Gay Argument Weight Insight Be Good Abortion Disgusting Gay Marriage Unreliable Irrationality Cloning Against Gay Marriage Human Cloning

Author:Paul Bloom

“No one thinks anything silly is suitable when they are an adolescent. Such an enormous share of their own behavior is silly that they lose all proper perspective on silliness, like a baker who is nauseated by the sight of his own eclairs. This provides another good argument for the emerging theory that the best use of cryogenics is to freeze all human beings when they are between the ages of twelve and nineteen.”

Thinking Humans Use Age Loses Human Beings Share Theory Perspective Behavior Argument Sight Silly Enormous Twelve Emerging Freeze Suitable Nineteen Bakers Silliness Eclairs

Author:Anna Quindlen

“The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and -- so the argument goes -- that's that.”

Humans Has Beens Reason Culture Language Animal Morality Argument Tools Uniqueness

Author:Carl Sagan

“They say that 'history is an argument without end.' In Thompson's skillful hands, this momentous argument between two old friends on the most critical issue of the last century is thus history at its best. Thompson's judicious and delicious depiction of Nitze and Kennan will fascinate anyone who cares about the Cold War or the ways that human beings shape the future.”

Way Humans Two War Ends Hands Care Lasts Human Beings Issues Century Cold Shapes Argument Critical Cold War Delicious Who Cares Old Friends Skillful Depiction

Author:Jonathan Alter

“The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.”

World Way Humans Facts Belief Human Beings Common Evidence Argument Secure Willingness Openness Permit

Book:The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

“If any issue should unite liberals and conservatives, anyone who cares about the integrity of human achievement or respect for human accomplishment, may we not all pledge to avoid the silly censoring that can lead to a codification of Orwell's Newspeak? Consider John Milton's reasons for why good arguments are often lost: 'For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!'”

Ifs Want Should Humans May Reason Care Lost Issues Doubt Internet Integrity Achievement Argument Breaths Silly Accomplishment No Doubt Free Speech Who Cares Pledge Milton Censoring

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.”

Humans Certain Courses Practice Conditions Human Nature Argument Agree Unheard

Author:Baruch Spinoza

“You do not settle whether an argument is justified by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments but between barbarous and civilized behaviour. Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.”

Ifs Humans Doe Character Use Evil Social Argument Experiments Useless Settling Distinction Civilized Expenses Behaviour Justified Human Knowledge Vivisection Social Evils

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“...as I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy.”

Men Believe Humans I Can Matter Philosophy Belief Sound Challenges Behinds Progress Depends Conscious Argument Rejects Domination Efficacy Human Progress Old Time

Book:Bhagat Singh, on the path of liberation

Source: Bhagat Singh, on the path of liberation

“Above all, documentary must reflect the problems and realities of the present. It cannot regret the past; it is dangerous to prophesy the future. It can, and does, draw on the past in its use of existing heritages but it only does so to give point to a modern argument. In no sense is documentary a historical reconstruction and attempts to make it so are destined to failure. Rather it is contemporary fact and event expressed in relation to human associations.”

“I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.”

“For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.”

Years Humans Belief Calling Argument Killing Settling Contradiction Civilized Savages Persist

Author:Walter Cronkite

“Seek to have your life in God, not in things, not in people, not in places, not in circumstances, not in arguments, not in human intelligence, but in God.”

People Humans Circumstances Argument Human Intelligence

Author:Theodore Austin-Sparks

“In fact, the libertarian would reason that the fact that human nature is a mixture of both good and evil provides its own particular argument in his favor. For if man is such a mixture, then the best societal framework is surely one in which evil is discouraged and the good encouraged. The libertarian maintains that the existence of the State apparatus provides a ready, swift channel for the exercise of evil, since the rulers of the State are thereby legitimated and can wield compulsion in ways that no one else is permitted to do.”

Ifs Men Way Humans States Reason Facts Evil Existence Human Nature Particular Ready Exercise Argument Libertarian Favors Good And Evil Rulers Mixtures Discouraged Framework Compulsion

Author:Murray Rothbard

“Like the Bible-a document that often contradicts itself and from which one can construct sharply different arguments-theology is the product of human hands and hearts.”

Humans Heart Different Hands Products Argument Theology Documents Constructs Human Hands

Author:Jon Meacham

“Was not necessity the plea of every illegal exertion of power or exercise of oppression?...Necessity is the plea for very infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

Humans Exercise Argument Slavery Slave Oppression Illegal Tyrants Creeds Exertion Human Freedom Infringement

Author:William Pitt

“The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being.”

Source: The Descent of Man

“Does the human being reason? No; he thinks, muses, reflects, but does not reason...that is, in the two things which are the peculiar domain of the heart, not the mind, politics and religion. He doesn't want to know the other side. He wants arguments and statistics for his own side, and nothing more.”

Thinking Knows Want Mind Humans Heart Doe Two Reason Sides Human Beings Argument Reasoning Two Things Statistics Peculiar Muse Domain Reflecting Religion And Politics

Author:Mark Twain

“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.”

World Humans Film Views Teach Argument Point Of View Human Experience Linear Nazareth

Author:Elia Suleiman

“The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.”

“No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights.”

Needs Humans Fighting Rights Argument Human Rights Terror

Author:Vladimir Putin

“All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.”

“Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”

Love Humans Reason Hate Energy Existence Argument Attraction Contrary Progression Human Existence Heaven And Hell Love And Hate Repulsion Hated Love Attraction And Love Attraction And Repulsion Energy Love

Author:William Blake

“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.”

Needs Humans Ideas Conflict Argument Innovation Debate Good Ideas Interaction Ideas And Innovation Research And Innovation

Author:Margaret Heffernan

“The Bishop goes on to the human eye, asking rhetorically, and with the implication that there is no answer, 'How could an organ so complex evolve?' This is not an argument, it is simply an affirmation of incredulity.”

Humans Eye Religion Answers Goes On Argument Asking Complexes Evolve Organs Faith In God Affirmation Implications Bishops Human Eyes Incredulity

Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

“The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne's are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.”

Ifs Mind Humans Kind Children Use Asks Answers Feet Fine Behavior Argument Asking Defeat Clever Yield Human Behavior Sage Apes

Author:Mary Doria Russell

“My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.”

“We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.”

Years Firsts Humans Wells Two Lasts Century Morality Thousand Conversation Argument Twenties Philosophical Insight Well Being Thousand Years Discourse

Author:Sam Harris

“I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are and what we are doing and what we ought to do. I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another. I want to believe there are geniuses scheming to astonish the rest of us, just for the pleasure of it.”

Want Feels Believe Humans Art Made Human Beings Pleasure Ought Genius Art Is Argument Passionate Utterance Good Faith

Book:The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

Source: The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

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