Best argument & intellectual Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.”

Stories Shows Seems Belief Easy Fiction Study Shapes Intellectual Evidence Argument Moved Critical Nonfiction Skeptical Shields

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“Sam Harris fearlessly describes a moral and intellectual emergency precipitated by religious fantasies--misguided beliefs that create suffering, that rationalize violence, that have endangered our nation and our future. His argument for the morality, the honesty, and the humility of atheism is galvanizing. It is a relief that someone has spoken so frankly, with such passion yet such rationality. Now when the subject arises, as it inevitably does, I can simply say: Read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation.”

“Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so.”

“A willingness to engage in the give and take of argument displays a commitment to cognitive egalitarianism - the proposition that all people should be treated as intellectual equals, and that no individual can legitimately claim a privileged immunity from the burden of proof.”

Source: Why Atheism?

“There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan.”

Should Reason Seems Together Political Politics Intellectual Argument Reason Why Patriotism No Reason Partisans Trimming

Author:Herman Melville

“You do not need intellectuality for deep faith. You do not need it for behaving humanely towards people whether fellow Muslims or non-Muslims. You do not need a concept, a theory, you do not need intellectual arguments for justifying a way of living that is already in place in order for it to proceed.”

People Way Needs Order Theory Intellectual Concepts Argument Fellows

Author:Talal Asad

“The underlying intellectual argument for seeking to tax economic rents retains its force.”

Force Economic Taxes Intellectual Argument Seeking

Author:Mervyn King

“You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.”

Ifs Past Energy Can Do Reader Intellectual Research Argument Thirds Valuable Strongest Ink Do The Best Paragraph

Author:Carl Hiaasen

“Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”

Strong Causes Intellectual Argument Weak Bitter Bitterness Bitter Words

Author:Victor Hugo

“Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers-if God's presence is felt, and if the message is understandable. God's presence must be sensed in the service. More people are won to Christ by feeling God's presence than by all our apologetic arguments combined. Few people, if any, are converted to Christ on purely intellectual grounds. It is the sense of God's presence that melts the heart and explodes mental barriers.”

People Ifs Heart Feelings Felt Christ Powerful Worship Messages Intellectual Argument Witness Barriers Unbelievers Apologetic God's Presence

Author:Rick Warren

“Today I have lost one of my dearest friends, England one of her greatest men. Keith Joseph understood that it was necessary to win again the intellectual argument for freedom, and that to do this we must start from first principles. He was in many ways an unlikely revolutionary. For all his towering intellect, he was deeply humble. He spoke out boldly, however hostile the audience. Yet he hated to give offence. Above all, his integrity shone out in everything he said and did. His best memorial lies in the younger generations of politicians whom he inspired. But for me he is irreplaceable.”

“It is wonderful to work in an environment with a lot of smart people. It challenges you to think and work on a different level. If you play with better players, you learn a lot: perspectives, intellectual arguments, new ways of thinking about things.”

“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

“Political change and academic change and intellectual change are obviously crucial, but they don't necessarily change society. They can change a particular class and give everybody in that class great arguments, but that doesn't necessarily translate into the body of the culture.”

Giving Body Political Culture Class Particular Intellectual Argument Crucial Academic Translate Political Change

Author:Eve Ensler

“I need somebody who can at least stand up to me and slug it out, toe to toe. I don't mean a physical battle. I mean a man who would lay me, and when he was done, I'd say: "Oh, brother, I've been laid." Or if we had an argument, he would stand up and engage in intellectual combat and not go off and mope in the corner, or take reprisals, or go to drink.”

Ifs Men Needs Mean Done Brother Drink Battle Intellectual Argument Lays Corners Combat Toes Slugs Reprisal

Author:Madalyn Murray O'Hair

“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.”

Integrity Republican Intellectual Argument Shame Various Embarrassment

Author:Jay Rockefeller

“It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.”

Order Politics Understanding Personality Intellectual Argument Intelligence Arguing Sarcastic Love

Author:Pierre Beaumarchais

“Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument.”

Way Life Conditions Intellectual Argument Empty Treasure Enthusiasm Excitement Sand Coins Magnificence Squandering Empty Words Flipping A Coin Excitement Of Life

Author:George Sand

“When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.”

People Religion Our Lives Imagine Honest Integrity Intellectual Standards Evidence Areas Argument Engaged Logical Imagine That Considering Propositions Appraisal Logical Arguments

Book:Letter to a Christian Nation

Source: Letter to a Christian Nation

“The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.”

World Honesty Intellectual Evidence Argument Core Certainty Mathematical Willingness Modeling Intellectual Honesty

Author:Sam Harris

“It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.”

Lost Personality Intellectual Argument Intelligence Arguing

Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray (with an Essay by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly)

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray (with an Essay by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly)

“Jesus did not get stuck in intellectual arguments with people. He did not go for the intellect; He went for the conscience. He spoke to that part of the person that knows the difference between right and wrong instinctively.”

People Knows Persons Jesus Differences Intellectual Conscience Argument Intellect Stuck Spokes

Author:Kirk Cameron

“The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.”

Liberty Economic Intellectual Argument Favourite Confession Intimidation Impotence

Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“Many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations. This feeling is stronger than any intellectual insight they might have, that it is not a child's task or duty to satisfy his parents needs. No argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest periods, and from that they derive their intensity and obduracy.”

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

“Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who believe that every word in the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean.”

Believe Mean Has Beens Home Might Science Religion Belief Trouble Movement Evolution Intellectual Argument Claims Phenomenon Creationism Splinters

Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

“Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection.' I have dubbed this kind of fallacy 'the Argument from Personal Incredulity.' Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.”

Believe Kind Evolution Intellectual Argument Skins Proven Selection Bananas Fallacy Prelude Incredulity

Author:Richard Dawkins

“All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.”

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.”

Source: The Ministry of the Spirit: Selected Writings of Roland Allen

“Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.”

Believe Wisdom Findings Intellectual Argument Reasoning Rationality Reason And Logic

Book:The Mind in the Making

Source: The Mind in the Making

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.”

Heart Eye Able Understanding Answers Party Essentials Intellectual Evidence Argument Ears Finals Debate Enormous Command Ease Subtle Rejects

Book:Animal Farm and 1984

Source: Animal Farm and 1984

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