“I love the question-and-answer. I love to see liberals try to thrash their way to a coherent argument. And actually, I think it's fun to debate.” ThinkingWayTryingFunAnswersArgumentDebateQuestions And Answers Author:Ann Coulter
“I have been so satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it. I am not afraid now that you will show me any. I feel that I have enough information to live and die by.” FeelsTryingHas BeensEnoughShowsChristianDiesInformationArgumentSatisfiedNot AfraidShow Me Author:William Jennings Bryan
“In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.” PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsTryingWellsMeanPoliticalUsedCoursesFatherLeftWorryTaughtArgumentCriticismWeightCheerCheer UpPolitical Arguments Author:Margaret Thatcher
“I am afraid that those comments go back to the late 80's. At that time I was a skeptic - the argument based on Koch's postulates to try to distinguish between cause and association. Today I would regard the success of the many antiviral agents which lower the virus titers (to be expected) and also resolve the failure of the immune system (only expected if the virus is the cause of the failure) as a reasonable proof of the causation argument .” IfsTryingTodayCausesLateArgumentRegardExpectedProofAgentsReasonableResolveCommentAssociationVirusesImmuneSkepticImmune SystemCausation Author:Walter Gilbert
“I gave someone a perverse argument not so long ago about why advertising is better than movies. You want to hear it? Movies operate from a really disingenuous premise, that people are heroes. I know a lot of people and have had an opportunity over the years to observe them. Are they heroes...? Let's put it this way. Advertising tries something simpler and more believable: Products as heroes. I guess the idea is: When all else fails, put your faith in conditioner.” PeopleKnowsWayWantTryingYearsLongIdeasOpportunityFailingProductsHeroArgumentAdvertisingLong AgoPremisesBelievableWhen All Else FailsDisingenuous Author:Errol Morris
“Pascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.” IfsThinkingTryingSelfReasonShowsBeliefAtheismPolicyParticularArgumentSakePositive AtheismMotiveJustifyCatholicismPersuasionFlewSystematicPrudentRoman CatholicPascal Author:Antony Flew
“Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses.” ThinkingKnowsWantTryingIdeasWantedUsedCoursesBeliefReligiousBehindsTeachTeacherAtheismTeachingDesignTaughtTheoryEvolutionProtectWeaknessProgramArgumentIntelligentDeterminePositive AtheismAlternativesContradictionReligious BeliefInvokeIntelligent Design Author:Steven Weinberg
“The bicycle is its own best argument. You just get a bike, try it; start going with the thing and using it as it suits you. It'll grow and it gets better and better and better.” TryingGrowsArgumentSuitsGet BetterBikeBicycleIt Gets BetterSuits You Author:Richard Ballantine
“As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change - that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.” IfsWayTryingLongPhilosophyProcessCommonProjectsArgumentAbsolutesPhilosophicalAvailableIntuitionCommon SenseAccomplishedConceptionRelativeSwingsSkepticismNeatDogmatismTiresomePendulumsCultural Change Author:Richard Rorty
“All the arguments about nutrition are really about what is the problem ingredient in the western diet. Is it the fat? Is it the lack of fiber? Is it the refined carbohydrates?But we don't have to worry about it. We just have to try to get off that diet to the extent we can.” TryingProblemWorryArgumentWesternFatsDietsIngredientsNutritionRefinedFiberCarbohydrates Author:Michael Pollan
“I tell my boys not to play rough with their younger sister. I try to teach them what I know already: You're never going to win an argument with a girl, so just let her have what she wants!” KnowsWantTryingPlayGirlWinningBoysTeachArgumentRoughMy BoysHarveyYounger Sister Author:Steve Harvey
“Universities are fantastic places to gain knowledge on a subject, develop a personal network, explore your character and learn new techniques to approach problems. I do however believe that there is a strong argument for students who have an idea they are passionate about to just try and turn it into a reality. I fell into this category and I don't regret not going to University.” TryingBelieveIdeasCharacterProblemRealityTurnsStrongSubjectsStudentsRegretApproachGainsArgumentUniversityPassionateTechniqueFantasticCategoriesDon't Regret Author:Richard Branson
“Everybody have equal rights to a life of full flourishing. Philosophy slowly, slowly has given us arguments saying, look, you already committed to your own life flourishing, and you're being inconsistent if you don't expand it. So philosophy often works in trying to show us that there's an inner incoherence in our points of view. We're all committed to one thing when it comes to us and our own kind, but we're not willing to expand it and we're guilty of inconsistency.” IfsTryingLooksKindPhilosophyShowsGivenViewsRightsOne ThingWillingEqualArgumentCommittedPoint Of ViewGuiltyEqual RightsInconsistentFlourishingInconsistencyIncoherence Author:Rebecca Goldstein
“[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate.” PeopleTryingIdeasCultureFoundWinningTeacherArgumentBusySeedsDebateSettingSettingsArticlesClassroomIntroducing Author:Deborah Tannen
“If you look at what's happened to the stock market, if you look at what's happened to housing values, if you look at what's happened to bank loan portfolios because the value of their other assets that they've already issued loans against were going down, there was a pretty good argument for trying to pass something at about this level of investment with the divisions as they were - unemployment, food stamps, and tax cuts, aid to education and healthcare, and job creation.” IfsTryingLooksJobsValuesLevelsCuttingHappenedCreationTaxesArgumentInvestmentAidsDivisionAssetsHealthcareUnemploymentStampsHousingLoanTax CutsPortfoliosJob CreationFood Stamps Author:William J. Clinton
“Old texts, myths, and religions have always fascinated me, though I prefer learning about them to writing papers and trying to make thoughts and arguments regarding their effect or meaning - this being the essence of my time in religious studies.” WritingTryingReligiousStudyEffectsPaperArgumentEssenceMythMy TimeFascinatedPapersReligious Studies Author:Tom Shields
“After a lifetime of picking stocks, I have to admit that Bogle's arguments in favor of the index fund have me thinking of joining him rather than trying to beat him. Bogle's wisdom and common sense are indispensable... for anyone trying to figure out how to invest in this crazy stock market.” ThinkingTryingCommonCrazyFiguresBeatsArgumentLifetimeInvestingFavorsCommon SenseFundIndispensableJoiningIndex Funds Author:Jim Cramer
“Some people throw a bit of their personality after their bad arguments, as if that might straighten their paths and turn them into right and good arguments-just as a man in a bowling alley, after he has let go of the ball, still tries to direct it with gestures.” PeopleIfsMenTryingStillsMightTurnsBitsPathPersonalityLetting GoArgumentDirectBallsGesturesAlleysBowlingBowling Alleys Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche Source: Basic Writings of Nietzsche
“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.” KnowsTryingLongSeemsSunMarriedLong TimeArgumentSense Of HumorGood Marriage Author:Stephen King
“God doesn't help. I think that's a knockdown argument. I think that it really shows that whatever moral knowledge we have and whatever moral progress we make in our knowledge or whatever progress we make in our moral knowledge is not coming really from religion. It's coming from the very hard work really of moral philosophy, of trying to ground our moral reasonings.” ThinkingTryingHardPhilosophyHelpingShowsMoralProgressHard WorkArgumentReasoningMoral PhilosophyMoral Reasoning Author:Rebecca Goldstein
“In an argument, you may silence your opponent by pressing an advantage of strength or of wealth, or of education. But you do not really convince him. Though he is no longer saying anything, in his heart he still keeps to his opinion, the only way to make him change that opinion is to speak quietly and reasonably. When he understands that you are not trying to defeat him, but only to find the truth, he will listen to you and perhaps accept what you tell him.” WayTryingHeartMayStillsSpeakWealthSilenceAcceptingOpinionAdvantageArgumentDefeatOpponentsConvince Author:Kano Jigoro
“There is no more irritating fellow than the man who tries to settle an argument about communism, or justice, or liberty, by quoting from Webster.” MenTryingJusticeLibertyHe ManArgumentFellowsCommunismSettlingIrritatingQuoting Author:Mortimer Adler
“If the argument is that failure helps you succeed, well, so does success and it's quicker. This suggests at least one reason for trying to succeed.” IfsTryingWellsDoeReasonHelpingSucceedArgumentTrying To Succeed Author:Norman Geras
“I try to turn a written thing, when I'm in trouble with it, into a spoken thing: I start imagining what I would say to someone if I were trying to tell the story or make the argument.” IfsTryingStoriesTurnsWrittenTroubleArgument Author:Adam Gopnik
“For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.” PeopleThinkingWayTryingYearsHas BeensForceSucceedArgumentBrutesBrute Force Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
“Why don't Republicans spend all their airtime attacking the media for lying about what Obama's amnesty does and what the Democrats are doing? It's hard to avoid concluding that Republicans aren't trying to make the right arguments. In fact, it kind of looks like they're intentionally throwing the fight on amnesty. If a Republican majority in both houses of Congress can't stop Obama from issuing illegal immigrants Social Security cards and years of back welfare payments, there is no reason to vote Republican ever again.” IfsTryingYearsLooksKindDoeHardReasonFactsLyingFightingHouseSocialSecurityMediaRepublicanArgumentVoteMajorityDemocratCongressCardsWelfareImmigrantsNo ReasonIllegalThrowingSocial SecurityAttackingPaymentIllegal ImmigrantsAmnestyConcluding Author:Ann Coulter
“[T]he next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you'll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we're bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we're good. And real-world policy - policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families - is being built on that foundation.” PeopleIfsWorldNeedsTryingRealNextBeliefSoundMillionsFantasyPolicySeriousBuiltArgumentFoundationRewardsInvisibleFairyReal WorldRealismNext TimeExplainingAusterityBlightVigilante Author:Paul Krugman
“There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.” ThinkingWritingTryingYearsSometimesRunningSeriousBecomingArgument Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I don't really have those kinds of intentions when I write a scene. I try to follow the internal logic of the fiction, rather than make an argument or an assertion.” WritingTryingKindFictionSceneArgumentLogicIntentionInternalsAssertion Author:Rachel Kushner
“I try to most effectively and persuasively present our argument, in a way that gives other people the information they need to decide, on the merits, the wisdom of the path that the president has advocated.” PeopleWayNeedsGivingTryingPresidentPathInformationArgumentMerit Author:Josh Earnest
“I am trying to get at the moral arguments and the ethical status of various attempts at enhancement, or genetic engineering, or the bid for designer children. But there are implications for society at large.” TryingChildrenMoralArgumentVariousDesignerEthicalEngineeringImplicationsGenetic EngineeringEnhancement Author:Michael Sandel
“I'm a very friendly person, and I think that's had a big impact on my work because I tend to be pretty good with not trying to always win every argument and things like that. I just sort of try to bring a lot of people together to talk.” PeopleThinkingTryingPersonsBigsTogetherWinningArgumentImpactFriendlyBig ImpactFriendly Person Author:Jimmy Wales
“A lot of conservative writers have twisted that argument in the conversation around Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel and said this is identity politics as played by liberals. And that I think what they're trying to say is that progressives are the first to say.” ThinkingTryingFirstsSaidIdentityJudgingConversationArgumentConservativeTwistedIdentity Politics Author:Dahlia Lithwick
“President Lincoln was trying to convince some people, he used some arguments, convincing other people, he used other arguments. That was a great - I thought a great display of presidential leadership.” PeopleTryingUsedPresidentArgumentPresidentialConvinceDisplayConvincingPresidential LeadershipConvincing OthersPresident Lincoln Author:Hillary Clinton
“After Pope, in the beginning of Romanticism, people developed the idea that imagination rather than reason was a special form of knowledge and its best expression is through poetry. Therefore, poetry should not try to do the stuff that mere prose does: convey information or make arguments about ideas.” PeopleShouldTryingDoeIdeasReasonFormStuffImaginationSpecialInformationExpressionArgumentMereProsePopeRomanticism Author:Robert Hass
“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.” KnowsTryingSeemsPleasurePerspectiveArgumentArguingNovelistsOnlineGrumpy Author:Zadie Smith
“There are some parts of the business world, in my judgment, that are actually trying to ensure that the U.S. does not take on board the preponderance of arguments for global warming, and that is something I am really very concerned about.” WorldTryingDoeJudgmentConcernedArgumentBoardsGlobal WarmingBusiness World Author:Mary Robinson
“If Democrats are not showing up in those [rural] places even if you're not gonna win right away but if you're not in there at least making an argument that, "Hey, you know what? It's the Democrats who are trying to raise your minimum wage."” IfsKnowsTryingWinningArgumentRaisesDemocratHeyMinimumMinimum WageShowing UpHey You Author:Barack Obama
“If we're not there making the argument then the cultural gulf that Republicans try to exploit saying, "Ah, these city slickers: they're all looking down on you, they don't care about you. They're just trying to help out their various special interest constituencies," that argument ends up being successful.” IfsTryingEndsHelpingCareInterestCitiesSuccessfulSpecialRepublicanArgumentVariousDon't CareBeing SuccessfulExploitsSpecial InterestsLooking Down Author:Barack Obama
“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
“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
“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 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
“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
“The question is: exactly how did life get here? Was it by natural selection and random mutation or was it by something else? Everybody - even Richard Dawkins - sees design in biology. You see this design when you see co-ordinated parts coming together to perform a function - like in a hand. And so it's the appearance of design that everybody's trying to explain. So that if Darwin's theory doesn't explain it we're left with no other explanation than maybe it really was designed. That's essentially the design argument.” TryingTogetherNaturalDesignArgumentAppearanceExplanationBiologyNatural Selection Author:Michael Behe
“If you go to the right conservative places you'll find there's a huge argument about this among conservatives, particularly the conservative elites and the conservative intellectuals. There's always an argument among our people over who's the smartest person in the room and they're always trying to outsmart each other with the fanciest smartest most obscure argument. The fact is these arguments are taking place within the conservative movement I think quite a lot.” PeopleThinkingTryingArgumentConservativeObscure Author:Rush Limbaugh
“In our society, talking about sex is still a taboo, and of course many village chiefs don't want to hear about that issue. "You are trying to deviate us from our way of life, our traditions." And of course the argument they give is that these traditions date back to before our birth, and actually they accuse us of being funded by the outside world to subvert their way of life.” WorldGivingTryingBirthArgumentTraditionTaboo Author:Ousmane Sembene
“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.” PeopleTryingCareEmpathyArgumentRationalSupportiveCongo Author:Nicholas D. Kristof
“It's funny that Chairman Mao's great hero was Napoleon, because Napoleon started out as a revolutionary for the underdogs and then made himself an emperor. In fact, a lot of revolutionary leaders do that, and you think, "Well, that's spoiling your argument. What are you doing?" But on the other hand, the people themselves are enjoying trying out all these different ways to be. I hope that, like the Japanese, the Chinese hang on to their own traditions as well as try out Western ones. I hate it when people just lose so much confidence in who they are that they abandon their own culture.” PeopleThinkingTryingDifferentHateCultureEnjoyLeaderHeroArgumentTraditionI HateWesternChineseRevolutionaryAbandonEmperorUnderdog Author:Robert Wyatt