Quotes, aphorisms and phrases about discussing, or about conversing more or less animatedly on a certain topic, making your own contribution to setting up or solving the problem under discussion.
Quotes about arguing
- When two good people argue about principles, they are both right. (Marie Von Ebner Eschenbach)
- Discussion. One of the many methods to confirm others in their mistakes. (Ambrose Bierce)
- When I am preparing to argue with a person, I spend a third of my time thinking about myself and what I will say - and two thirds of thinking about him and what he will tell me. (Abraham Lincoln)
- Head to head is always struggle, discussion, there is always conflict. Only from heart to heart there is communion, there is communication. (Osho)
- Philosophizing is as good as problematizing and questioning what passes itself off as an indubitable and obvious truth. (Wilhelm Weischedel)
- In discussions made for the sake of oneself, the one who wins is more profitable, because of what he learns from it. (Epicurus)
- We have to have long discussions about what has to be decided once and for all. (Publilio Siro)
- Many have discussed religions they have never practiced. (Benjamin Franklin)
- The dispute over a thought that is out of practice is a purely scholastic matter. (Karl Marx)
- The purpose of a discussion or debate should not be victory, but improvement. (Joseph Joubert)
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- Discussions only confirm people in their opinions. (Newton Booth Tarkington)
- You must avoid getting agitated and barking at each joke, waiting patiently for the interlocutor to finish exposing his thought, even if you do not share it, without however investing him immediately with a slew of objections, but still giving him some more time to integrate, clarify or correct what he said, and possibly retract a few hasty sentences. (Plutarch)
- You have an immense defect that will block all doors: you cannot argue for more than two minutes with an imbecile without making him understand that he is an imbecile. (Emile Zola)
- In matters of discussion, I call honorable adversaries, those who do not want as much "to be right" as to improve their mental organization - who prefer their mind to their own love. (Paul Valéry)
- He who disputes does not fight for truth, but to impose his own thesis. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
- I hate discussions of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing. (Oscar Wilde)
- The theory of a free press is that the truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any version. (Walter Lippmann)
- It is very easy to trim down an opponent's arguments, but contrasting better ones is not easy and costs effort. (Plutarch)
- It hasn't been too long a whole life spent to confront each other on this world where we are and this world that we are. (Marguerite Yourcenar)
Aphorisms on arguing
- Philosophers argue, nature acts. (Voltaire)
- After a discussion, silence can mean acceptance or continuation of the opposition by other means. (Mason Cooley)
- Don't stand on the wrong side in an argument just because your opponent has got on the right side. (Baltasar Graciàn)
- Conversation means being able to disagree and yet continue the discussion. (Dwight Macdonald)
- Make sure you never, ever, argue at night. You only lose a good night's sleep, and you can't fix anything until morning. (Rose Kennedy)
- Families where nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss. (Mason Cooley)
- Sometimes it happens that we discuss because we do not understand what our interlocutor wants to demonstrate. (Lev Tolstoj)
- By arguing, controversying and contradicting, sometimes you can even win; but it is a Pyrrhic victory because the opponent's sympathy will never be achieved. (Benjamin Franklin)
- Discussing with a person who has given up using reason is like giving medicine to a dead person. (Thomas Paine)
- The evils that society suffers cannot be healed unless we speak openly about them. (John Stuart Mill)
- The most important thing in a discussion, when you are right, is to leave a way out for the opponent, so that he can take your side without losing face. (Sidney Harris)
- When you are sure you are right, there is no need to argue with those who are wrong. (Georges Wolinski)
- Many can argue, few converse. (Amos Bronson Alcott)
- Sometimes it happens that we discuss because we do not understand what our interlocutor wants to demonstrate. (Lev Tolstoj)
- I can't persuade myself that, to be right, you have to have the last word at all costs. (Jean-Jacques Rosseau)
- Freedom is sculpted with a hammer blow on the anvil of discussion, dissent and debate. (Hubert Horatio Humphrey)
- After a discussion, silence can mean acceptance or continuation of the opposition by other means. (Mason Cooley)
- Like any other art form, cinema is important only if used to discuss those things we don't want to hear about, otherwise it is just a vanity tool. (Joao Costa Menezes)
- He who disputes does not fight for truth, but to impose his own thesis. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Phrases about arguing
- I love discussions, I love to debate. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, that's not their job. (Margaret Thatcher)
- When you start by saying to those with whom you disagree that they are not only in error but in sin, how many possibilities for dialogue do you expect? (Thomas Sowell)
- Do not be afraid of those who fight but of those who evade. (Marie Von Ebner Eschenbach)
- My parents have had one argument in forty-five years. It lasted forty three years. (Cathy Ladman)
- Who is capable does not argue, who argues is not capable. (Lao Tse)
- If there is much discussion against the maxims that lay bare the human heart, it is because everyone is afraid of being laid bare. (Francois De La Rochefoucauld)
- Never argue with an idiot: people may not notice the difference. (Arthur Bloch)
- I have always emerged victorious from any discussion. My parents believed that I would become a lawyer. (Jared Harris)
- If we understood each other first about the meaning of the words used, most of the discussions would not take place. (Blaise Pascal)
- Living is too important to be able to talk about it seriously. (Oscar Wilde)
- Never argue with an idiot: he drags you to his level and beats you with experience. (Mark Twain)
- The only bigger idiot of the person who knows everything is the one who argues with him. (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)
- In a discussion, the difficult thing is not to defend your opinion, but rather to know it. (André Maurois)
- If we don't confront anyone, we become who we are. (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
- You can argue with those who know, you can argue with those who do not know, but the Buddha himself would not know how to argue with those who believe he knows. (Jean Baudrillard)
- People generally fight because they can't argue. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)
- Don't waste time arguing with fools and talkers: everyone has the word, only a few common sense. (Cato The Censor)
- It happens instead that, when you find yourself in disagreement on some point, and when the one does not recognize that the other speaks well and clearly, you get angry, and each thinks that the other speaks out of envy towards you, competing for the best and giving up research on the topic proposed in the discussion. (Socrates)
- Who is capable does not argue, who argues is not capable. (Lao Tzu)
