arguments Quotes

“And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.”

“I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?”

“O, then my best blood turn To an infected jelly and my name Be yoked with his that did betray the Best! Turn then my freshest reputation to A savour that may strike the dullest nostril Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn’d, Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection That e’er was heard or read!”

“An argument that happened while you were walking out the door on your way to work is no longer an actual argument, it’s a thought in your mind.”

“I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

″[Harry Hoyt] was embarrassed by his mother’s lack of patriotic zeal; it may have been the only time he argued with anyone, but he won the argument—he got to go to Vietnam, where he was killed by one of the poisonous snakes of that region. It was a Russell’s viper and it bit him while he was peeing under a tree; a later revelation was that the tree stood outside a whorehouse, where Harry had been waiting his turn. He was like that; he was a walker—when there was no good reason to walk.”

“You told me! I told you!”

“Yes, I would become upset when you forgot to take out the garbage, but that is not a real argument. That is nothing. It passes like a leaf blown by the window. It is over and done and it is forgotten quickly.”

“But Ove isn’t bloody arguing. He just thinks right is right. Is that such an unreasonable attitude to life?”

“People love getting into spats on the internet. Some people spend their whole lives doing it. The only people who object to ridicule and criticism are touchy, fragile celebrities and journalists with brittle egos who can’t cope with readers pointing out how biased and stupid they are.”

“The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning.”

“Cases are won on closing arguments only on television, not in a real courtroom.”

“Faith was the excuse you used if you didn’t have a good argument.”

“But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction of that scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points.”

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”

“She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.”

“Ultimately, Leibniz argued, there are only two absolutely simple concepts, God and Nothingness. From these, all other concepts may be constructed, the world, and everything within it, arising from some primordial argument between the deity and nothing whatsoever.”

“It’s funny how after we decide we don’t like someone, we can find reasons to support our decision, and equally the other way around.”

“You couldn’t ever win an argument with Archie. He was too quick with his words.”

“Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.”

“I can’t go to sleep. The music’s turned up and the arguments have started. There’s something funny about the night that makes grown-ups go stupid and call each other names. Maybe it’s their way of scaring off the Hairyman. Maybe it’s just the grog in them.”