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Arguments Quotes

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Arguments Quotes

“Classical philosophy holds that perpetual agreement with another person is incompatible with friendship. Because no two people can possibly agree on everything, someone who never expresses disagreement with you is acting insincerely - and true friendship requires sincerity above almost everything else.”

FriendshipHonestySincerityFlatteryDisagreementArguments
Book:We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
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“[Ralph Waldo] Emerson believed that any friendship worthy of the name consisted of two essential elements: tenderness, or honest affection not tied to any material interest, and truth, or a willingness to speak sincerely without fear that frankness will destroy the relationship. Simply agreeing with everything someone says is a sign not of friendship but of insincerity. 'Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo,' he writes. Friendship should be 'an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them.”

FriendshipHonestyConflictSincerityArguments
Book:We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
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“Maybe I'm too crazy to be in a relationship," Henry said, which was his familiar response to Bobby's familiar discourse about the future. It felt like a grown-up thing to say, and like a difficult concession, and what he meant by it was I am trying as hard as I can and it's not enough for you or even Why can't my weak eccentricities be adorable to you, as yours are to me? But Bobby always heard it as a conversation stopper, childish and easy and glib.”

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Book:The Great Night
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“Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else.”

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Book:Killosophy
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“If you can't impress them with your argument, impress them with your actions.”

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Book:Wealth of Words
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“We can simply—as a matter of principle and power preservation—refuse to participate in unproductive arguments or engage in conversations that diminish our sense of self-worth. Grasp that silence in this context isn’t about passive aggression or suppressing our voice; it’s about recognizing when our energy is better spent elsewhere … or not spent at all.”

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Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“In the context of conflict resolution, wu wei encourages us to approach disagreements with a sense of controlled (but not controlling) detachment. Instead of imposing our will or trying to micromanage the outcome, we learn to flow with the present moment and allow the situation to resolve itself naturally. This doesn’t mean being passive or indifferent. The practice of wu wei … is about finding a delicate balance between action and inaction. We speak our truth when necessary, but we also recognize when silence is the more prudent and persuasive course of action.”

SilenceBalanceSelf ControlDetachmentConflict ResolutionArgumentsDisagreementsMicromanagementWu WeiPower Of Silence
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“When you are inquiring into any subject, maintain a due regard to the arguments and objections on both sides of a question; consider, compare, and balance them well, before you determine for one side. It is a frequent, but a very faulty practice, to hunt after arguments only to make good one side of a question, and entirely to neglect and refuse those which favour the others side. If we have not given a due weight to arguments on both sides, we do but willfully misguide our judgment, and abuse our reason by forbidding its search after truth.”

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Book:Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth
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“Levin had often noticed in discussion between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and endless logical subtleties and talk, the disputants finally became aware that what they had been at such pains to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in the middle of a discussion grasping what it was the other liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away useless. Sometimes the reverse happened: he at last expressed what he liked himself, which he had been arguing to defend and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, had found the person he was disputing with suddenly agree.”

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Book:ANNA KARENINA
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“A wise man doesn’t answer a multifaceted question with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response alone. A one-word reply for an issue is a kindergarten response that has no value or meaning. Two people could basically feel the same way about an issue but still argue about it and possibly even come to hate each other because they settled on different one-word answers.”

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Book:The Beasts of Success
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“We have long known that in closed societies, the the arrival of democracy, with its clashing voices and differing opinions, can be "complex and frightening," as [Karen] Stenner puts it, for people unaccustomed to public dissent. The noise of argument, the constant hum of disagreement--these can irritate people who prefer to live in a society tied together by a single narrative. The strong preference for unity, at least among a portion of the population, helps explain why numerous liberal or democratic revolutions, from 1789 onward, ended in dictatorships that enjoyed wide support. Isaiah Berlin once wrote of the human need to believe that "somewhere, in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science... there is a final solution." Berlin observed that not all of the things that human beings think are good or desirable are compatible. Efficiency, liberty, justice, equality, the demands of the individual, and the demands of the group--all these things push us in different directions. And this, Berlin wrote, is unacceptable to many people: "to admit that the fulfilment of some of our ideals may in principle make the fulfilment of others impossible is to say that the notion of total human fulfilment is a formal contradiction, a metaphysical chimera." Nevertheless, unity is a chimera that some will always pursue.”

HumanityPoliticsDemocracyUnitySimplicityComplexityDiscomfortDisagreementArguments
Book:Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
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“When people say things that we find offensive, civic charity asks that we resist the urge to attribute to immorality or prejudice views that can be equally well explained by other motives. It asks us to give the benefit of doubts, the assumption of goodwill, and the gift of attention. When people say things that agree with or respond thoughtfully to our arguments, we acknowledge that they have done so. We compliment where we can do so honestly, and we praise whatever we can legitimately find praiseworthy in their beliefs and their actions. When we argue with a forgiving affection, we recognize that people are often carried away by passions when discussing things of great importance to them. We overlook slights and insults and decline to respond in kind. We apologize when we get something wrong or when we hurt someone's feelings, and we allow others to apologize to us when they do the same. When people don't apologize, we still don't hold grudges or hurt them intentionally, even if we feel that they have intentionally hurt us. If somebody is abusive or obnoxious, we may decline to participate in further conversation, but we don't retaliate or attempt to make them suffer. And we try really hard not to give in to the overwhelming feeling that arguments must be won - and opponents destroyed - if we want to protect our own status or sense of worth. We never forget that our opponents are human beings who possess innate dignity and fellow citizens who deserve respect.”

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Book:We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
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“Most of us don't really fear political disagreements with our close friends. We fear not being liked and respected by people we like and respect. Challenging someone's political beliefs can signal (correctly or not) a lack of respect or affection. One way to prevent this from happening is to say something like 'I think you are a great person, and I value our friendship, so when I disagree with you it's because I value your opinion and want to learn more about how you see things.' If someone manages to communicate this idea to me, then I'm probably not going to hesitate to express my real opinions about controversial issues. It also helps if we don't call each other 'stupid,' 'evil,' or 'crazy' when 'I don't quite see it that way; help me understand what you mean' will do just fine.”

PoliticsKindnessDialogueCivilityArguments
Book:We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
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