Best argument & seems 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

“It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.”

Seems Eye Imagination Deals Argument Ears Abstract Heels Packs Muse Plato Battered Kettles

Book:Poems of William Butler Yeats

Source: Poems of William Butler Yeats

“The Old Testament contains in many places, but especially in the book of Job, one of the most far-reaching defenses ever written of wilderness, of nature free from the hand of man. The argument gets at the heart of what the loss of nature will mean to us....God seems to be insisting that we are not the center of the universe, that he is quite happy if it rains where there are no people - that God is quite happy with places where there are no people, a radical departure from our most ingrained notions.”

“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

“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

“One of the appeals of markets, as a public philosophy, is they seem to spare us the need to engage in public arguments about the meaning of goods. So markets seem to enable us to be non-judgmental about values. But I think that's a mistake.”

Thinking Needs Philosophy Seems Values Mistake Argument Appeals Goods Spares Judgmental Non Judgmental

Author:Michael Sandel

“Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice.”

Seems Choices Argument Inclination Indulgence

Book:The Spanish gypsy

Source: The Spanish gypsy

“It seems idle to rail at ambition merely because it is a boundless passion; or rather is not this circumstance an argument in its favor? If one would be employed or amused through life, should we not make choice of a passion that will keep one long in play?”

Ifs Should Long Play Seems Would Be Choices Passion Circumstances Ambition Argument Favors Idle Employed Boundless Rail Amused

Book:Essays on Men and Manners

Source: Essays on Men and Manners

“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.”

“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

“Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.”

Should Matter Seems Fiction One Thing Argument Agree Teenager Lit

Author:Robin Wasserman

“It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has since.”

Ifs Book Seems Would Be Grew Argument Scary Be Good Destroyed Disputes

Author:Girolamo Savonarola

“Seems fairly clear that you fix a breed by LIMITING the amount of alien infiltration. You make a race by homogeneity and by avoiding INbreeding.... No argument has ever been sprouted against it. You like it in dogs and horses.”

Seems Race Clear Dog Amount Argument Horse Aliens Avoiding You Like It Homogeneity Infiltration Inbreeding

Author:Ezra Pound

“[F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.”

May Seems Asks Ability Sky Advice Argument Praise Affair Following Manage Allowing Submit Deference

Author:William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

“I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. It therefore seems to me that there is one and only one valid argument on which a case for giving up strategic bombing could be based, namely that it has already completed its task and that nothing now remains for the Armies to do except to occupy Germany against unorganized resistance.”

Giving Whole Seems Cities Cases Giving Up Argument Tasks Army Regard Remains British Bones Resistance Germany Strategic Bombing

Author:Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

“Trust, a sense of humor, and don't let the sun go down on an argument without trying to make it up. That's all I know about good marriage. I've been married a long time - it seems to be working.”

Knows Trying Long Seems Sun Married Long Time Argument Sense Of Humor Good Marriage

Author:Stephen King

“Happy Families. What's that all about, eh? A bloody busted flush is what it is. You surround yourself with other people so the night doesn't seem quite so dark. Shout down the sound of the wind with arguments about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Best not to kid yourself. Best not to give any hostages to fortune. You're on your own in the end. Always. Where else would you want to be?”

People Want Giving Ends Seems Kids Night Turns Sound Dark Wind Argument Fortune Surround Bloody Dishes Surround Yourself Hostage Happy Family Busted

Author:Mike Carey

“I'm much more concerned about what artists think. But as you get older you tend to get much more isolated; you're not out in the bar, having long drunken arguments on the benefits of your work vs. someone else's. It's hard to know how people are looking at it, and you don't get much feedback. The written critical stuff seems to be the feedback, but that's hard to interpret.”

People Thinking Knows Long Hard Seems Artist Stuff Know How Written Benefits Concerned Argument Critical Bars Isolated Feedback

Author:Brice Marden

“The issue here is this, that the Government's argument at the present moment is the argument that now the war is over, terrorism is defeated, we have to focus on economic development which in the north and east particular, being the areas where the war was fought, development has to proceed at a pace. That people from those parts of the country are leaving seems to suggest a lack of confidence and certainty in the trajectory of this kind of economic development.”

“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.”

“Year after year in Washington, budget debates seem to come down to an old, tired argument: on one side, those who want more government, regardless of the cost; on the other, those who want less government, regardless of the need....Government has a role, and an important role. Yet, too much government crowds out initiative and hard work, private charity and the private economy....Government should be active, but limited; engaged, but not overbearing.”

Want Needs Should Years Important Hard Seems Government Sides Roles Economy Too Much Hard Work Cost Argument Tired Charity Crowds Active Debate Budgets Engaged Initiative Overbearing

Author:George W. Bush

“Just supposing for the sake of the argument that there is a being of such a kind as that He may with any propriety be called "God", it does seem antecedently very improbable that weak and limited creatures of a day, such as we are, should discover Him by our own efforts.... who could be discovered in that way would hardly be worth discovering. I think we ought to stick to that principle rather firmly. I think we ought to be rather sure that we cannot know God unless God has been pleased to reveal Himself to us.”

Thinking Knows Way Should Kind May Doe Has Beens Seems Effort Principles Ought Creatures Argument Weak Sticks Sake Discovering Knowing God Improbable Propriety Supposing

Author:John Gresham Machen

“So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.”

World Firsts Mean Seems Government Opportunity Steps Serious Wall First Time Argument Caves Homo Sapiens World Government

Author:Gideon Rachman

“I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?”

Source: The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition

“The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.”

Should War Seems Argument Resistance Overwhelming

Book:The Essential Chomsky

Source: The Essential Chomsky

“I like to compare the first experiences of the Internet - the fortuitousness, the chance - with reality, with the experience, for example, of being in a city that you don't know. Many times - and I don't know if I can totally defend this argument - I've found that the way one experiences the world, and daily life, we are constantly dealing with these perceptions. And it seems like it works, this superficial perception of determinacy, but it's completely ridiculous.”

Ifs Knows World Way Firsts I Can Reality Seems Found Chance Cities Example Internet Perception Argument Ridiculous Compare Daily Life Superficial

Author:Sergio Chejfec

“Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us.”

Firsts Made Different Philosophy Shows Seems Might Possibility Perspective Offers Pages Argument Philosophical Valuable Assumption Different Place New Possibilities

Author:Philip Kitcher

“When an opinionated person starts to challenge something, his mind shuts out all that could clear up the matter. The argument irritates him, however just it might be, and it seems that he is afraid of discovering the truth.”

Mind Persons Matter Seems Might Truth Challenges Clear Argument Discovering Opinionated Discovering The Truth

Author:Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

“The indispensability argument says (roughly) that if you have ample reason to accept an empirical scientific theory that makes indispensable use of mathematics, and that theory entails that numbers exist, then you have ample reason to accept that numbers exist. The argument affirms the antecedent of this conditional, and concludes that you have ample reason to believe that numbers exist. What is striking about this argument is that it seems to show that the empirical reasons that suffice for accepting a scientific theory also suffice for accepting a metaphysical claim.”

Ifs Believe Reason Use Shows Seems Numbers Accepting Theory Argument Claims Mathematics Indispensable Metaphysical Scientific Theory Conditional

Author:Elliott Sober

“On another front of the category-error argument are the insufferable fogeys who think the [Nobel] award is an outrage upon literature itself. That the problem is not simply a mistake may have been made about definitions, but that awful vulgarians are encroaching upon their sacred places. [Bob] Dylan, to them, is the harbinger of the low-culture mob; the latest in an unending number of final straws, or the thin end of a wedge that never seems to get thicker.”

“The argument about marriage equality will one day seem as arcane and shocking to us as the fact that Rosa Parks had to get up and go to the back of the bus.”

Facts Seems One Day Argument Get Up Parks Bus Shocking Marriage Equality Rosa Arcane

Author:Uma Thurman

“One-hundred facts about Vietnam and we studied the fact sheet and got in to these arguments and it was fantastic, and I remember one moment when we heard two students saying don't talk to those guys, meaning my brother and me. They've just memorized that stupid fact sheet. And we thought, gosh do we sound that good? It didn't seem possible. But that was my introduction to politics.”

Two Moments Facts Seems Remember Guy Sound Heard Stupid Students Brother Hundred Argument Fantastic My Brother Vietnam Sheets Introduction

Author:Bill Ayers

“When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea.”

Doe Ideas Seems Universe Talking Argument Intelligent Worthy Designer Intelligent Design

Author:Richard Dawkins

“[Margot Hentoff] thinks - first of all, she - this I hear from a lot of people beside her. She thinks that men have no business getting into this argument at all unless they're going to be pro-choice. But it turns out that a fair number of fetuses are male, and besides that, we are all one part of humankind, it seems to me.”

People Thinking Men Firsts Seems Turns Choices Numbers Fairs Argument Males Humankind Fetus

Author:Nat Hentoff

“I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.”

Knows Trying Seems Pleasure Perspective Argument Arguing Novelists Online Grumpy

Author:Zadie Smith

“When you ask why did some particular question occur to a scientist or philosopher for the first time, or why did this particular approach seem natural, then your questions concern the context of discovery. When you ask whether the argument the philosopher puts forth to answer that question is sound, or whether the evidence justifies the scientific theory proposed, then you've entered the context of justification. Considerations of history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology are relevant to the context of discovery, but not to justification.”

Source: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

“Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.”

Thinking Doe Country Reason Facts Seems Winning Right Now Tough Argument Scared Winning The Day

Author:Barack Obama

“Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.”

Seems Consequence Argument Dust Dry

Author:George Will

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

Source: Joyful Christian

“Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.”

Thinking Persons Doe Real Self Hard Seems Might Care Certain Doubt Particular Needed Argument Absolutes Tables Yesterday Certainty No Doubt Convincing Real Self

Book:The Problems of Philosophy

Source: The Problems of Philosophy

“Lady Placida smiled. “History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title.” “Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.” Lady Placida laughed. “True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change.” She offered her hands. “It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder.”

Has Beens Made Enough Hands Seems Pleasure Records Grace Heard Events Argument Notes Factors Titles Suspects Laughed Serendipity

Book:Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

“Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.”

Soul Seems Desire Force Fire Example Arms Argument Perfection Direct Passionate Wave Burning Flames Nevertheless Maximum Fervor

Author:Hermann Hesse

“Oh, by the way…” Jason glanced at Percy. “I resigned my office, gave Frank a field promotion to praetor. Unless you want to contest that ruling.” Percy grinned. “No argument here.” “Praetor?” Hazel stared at Frank. He shrugged uncomfortably. “Well… yeah. I know it seems weird.” She tried to throw her arms around him, then winced as she remembered her busted ribs. She settled for kissing him. “It seems perfect.” Leo clapped Frank on the shoulder. “Way to go, Zhang. Now you can order Octavian to fall on his sword.”

Knows Way Want Wells Seems Order Fall Perfect Fields Arms Kissing Office Argument Yeah Shoulders Remembered Frank Contests Ruling Promotion Jason Ribs Resigned Busted Kissing Him Octavian

Author:Rick Riordan

“The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.”

Self Seems Religion Universe Chance Existence Atheism Conscious Argument Chiefs Science And Religion Impossibility Wondrous Existence Of God Science Religion God And Science Science God Conceiving

Book:Autobiography and Selected Letters

Source: Autobiography and Selected Letters

“Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Persons Feelings Hands Seems Science Human Beings Argument Legs Favors Shoulders Doctrine Conclusion Frogs Superstitious Twitching

Author:William James

“I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.”

Source: The Descent of Man: And Selection in Relation to Sex

“The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction ... One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgements of value follow directly from his wihes for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments.”

Source: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud

“This incomparable Author having at length been prevailed upon to appear in public, has in this Treatise given a most notable instance of the extent of the powers of the Mind; and has at once shown what are the Principles of Natural Philosophy, and so far derived from them their consequences, that he seems to have exhausted his Argument, and left little to be done by those that shall succeed him.a”

“Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.”

Knows Mean Country Matter Facts Seems Used Opinion Cases Perception Argument Currents Used To Be Our Country New Things Entitled Tearing Apart

Author:Stephen Colbert

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