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Argument Quotes

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Argument Quotes

“What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

May Doe Shows Belief Ability Argument Climate Rational Abandoned

Author:Austin Farrer

“Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

May Doe Belief Argument Climate Rational

Book:The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

Source: The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

“It is commonly said that if rational argument is so seldom the cause of conviction, philosophical apologists must largely be wasting their shot. The premise is true, but the conclusion does not follow. For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

Ifs May Doe Said Shows Seems Belief Causes Ability Shots Argument Philosophical Climate Conviction Rational Conclusion Abandoned Premises

Author:Austin Farrer

“I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.”

People Thinking Reason Eternal Argument Rational Optimist Civility

Author:Barack Obama

“Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe.”

Mind Ideas Reason Running Political Courses Politics Argument Investing Decades Rational Collapse Catastrophe

Author:Ludwig von Mises

“The necessary precondition for the birth of science as we know it is, it would seem, the diffusion through society of the belief that the universe is both rational and contingent. Such a belief is the presupposition of modern science and cannot by any conceivable argument be a product of science. One has to ask: Upon what is this belief founded?”

Knows Seems Universe Asks Belief Modern Products Birth Argument Rational Modern Science Diffusion

Book:Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

Source: Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

“Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous.”

“The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason itself is an illusion. As Ethan Allen said Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.”

Ifs Made Said Sometimes Reason Science Order Principles Ought Illusion Deserve Argument Claims Conviction Arguing Rational Consistent Irrational Arbitrary

Author:Carl Sagan

“only that which is deeply felt can change us. Rational arguments alone cannot penetrate the layers of fear and conditioning that comprise our crippling belief system.”

Feelings Belief Felt Argument Rational Layers Penetrate Conditioning Belief Systems

Book:The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s

“Do I wish that things were more orderly in Washington and rational and people listened to the best arguments and compromised and operated in a more thoughtful and organized fashion? Absolutely. But when you look at history that's been the exception rather than the norm.”

People Looks Wish Fashion Argument Rational Organized Thoughtful Exception Norm Orderly

Author:Barack Obama

“You cannot rationalize what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called truthization. There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.”

People Ifs Way Believe Lying Argument Passionate Rational Propositions Flattery Rationalize Bribery

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“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?

“Johnson is wise, Boswell foolish; Johnson warns and abstains, Boswell plunges; Johnson is rather a great man writing than a greatwriter, Boswell is a great writer and an ordinary man; and they are two of a kind, abysmal melancholics and compulsive socializers, afraid of solitude and afraid of death and dissolution, victims of themselves, meant for each other, needing each other, needing evidence and arguments (Boswell is a lawyer, Johnson magisterially dictates to him some of his briefs), making beautiful models of rational discourse out of the useful substance of all they know.”

“True gospel authority, the authority to heal and renew things and people, is not finally found in a hierarchical office, a theological argument, a perfect law, or a rational explanation. The Crucified revealed to the world that the real power that changes people and the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level.”

People World Real Law Found Lost Perfect Levels Letting Go Office Authority Argument Heal Rational Explanation Theological Real Power

Author:Richard Rohr

“Individual storytelling is incredibly powerful. We as journalists know intuitively what scientists of the brain are discovering through brain scans, which is that emotional stories tend to open the portals, and that once there's a connection made, people are more open to rational arguments.”

People Knows Made Stories Individual Powerful Brain Emotional Argument Connections Scientist Rational Storytelling Journalist Discovering Portal

Author:Nicholas D. Kristof

“Once you've created a connection of empathy, rational arguments can play a supportive role.”

Play Roles Empathy Argument Connections Rational Supportive

Author:Nicholas D. Kristof

“A person who knows all the answers, has an opinion on everything, has a certainty backed up by rational argument, has very little possibility of further progress. Such a person is unlikely to walk away from a discussion with anything more than a reaffirmation of how right he or she has been all along.”

Knows Littles Persons Has Beens Answers Walks Opinion Progress Possibility Argument Rational Certainty Discussion Unlikely

Book:I Am Right, You are Wrong: From this to the New Renaissance : from Rock Logic to Water Logic

Source: I Am Right, You are Wrong: From this to the New Renaissance : from Rock Logic to Water Logic

“As a profession, freelance writing is notoriously insecure. That's the first argument in its favor. For many reasons, a few of them rational, the thought of knowing exactly what next year's accomplishments, routine, income, and vacation will be - or even what time I have to get up tomorrow morning - has always depressed me.”

Writing Years Firsts Reason Next Morning Knowing Tomorrow Argument Profession Favors Income Rational Get Up Accomplishment Routine Vacation Insecure Next Year Tomorrow Morning

Author:Gloria Steinem

“People who reject transcendent authority can no longer persuade one another through rational arguments; everything is reduced to personal opinion. Debates about ideas thus degenerate into power struggles; we're left with no moral standard by which to measure the common good. For that matter, how can there be a 'common good' without an objective standard of truth?”

Source: The Sky Is Not Falling: Living Feaerlessly in These Turbulent Times

“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.”

Thinking Believe Book Failing Evidence Argument Rational Irrational Rationality

Author:Nomy Arpaly

“If you just try to make rational arguments about why people should care about Congo and how 5 million people have died, then people tend not to be receptive. But once you've created a connection of empathy, rational arguments can play a supportive role.”

People Trying Care Empathy Argument Rational Supportive Congo

Author:Nicholas D. Kristof

“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.”

Men Want Doe Reason Attitude Effects Argument Rational Positive Attitude

Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies

Source: The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.”

Way Able Literature Opinion Argument Rational

Author:Marilyn vos Savant

“If he failed the first time he took his driver's licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be more humiliating to a rational creature than being required to encourage the development of a base conditional reflex by stopping at a red light when there was not an earthly soul around, heeled or wheeled. He was more circumspect the next time, and passed.”

Ifs Firsts Soul Light Next Effort Development Prove Creatures First Time Red Argument Tests Ill Rational Drivers Next Time Stopping Humiliating Reflexes Conditional Red Lights

Book:Pnin

Source: Pnin

“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”

Ifs Men Reality Winning Learning Argument Finals Profit Rational Disagree Arbiter

Book:Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course; and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence – “Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.”

Source: The Jane Austen Library: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, Watsons, Sanditon

“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.”

“to rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies- that one has no rational arguments to offer.”

Mean Reason Religion Sides Enemy Cases Offers Argument Rational

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

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

“I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers”

“Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.”

People Home Names Argument Rational Opponents Thinker Illogical Slurs

Author:Benjamin Carson

“Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary.”

Faces Creatures Capable Evidence Argument Dignity Contrary Rational

Author:Richard John Neuhaus

“Rational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally.”

Science Argument Arguing Rational Defeated

Author:Steven Weinberg

“There prevails among men of letters, an opinion, that all appearance of science is particularly hateful to Women; and that therefore whoever desires to be well received in female assemblies, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important; must consider argument or criticism as perpetually interdicted; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment.”

Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752

“What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.”

Ifs Believe Seems Faith Evidence Argument Absence Rational Despite If You Believe

Author:Peter Singer