Quotes of: Argument Keyword

What it means to be a ‘better person’, then, must be concrete and practical — that is to say, concerned with people’s political situations as a whole — rather than narrowly abstract, concerned only with the immediate interpersonal relations...

Literary Theory: An Introduction

One salutary development in recent ethical theorizing is the widespread recognition that no short argument will serve to eliminate any of the major metaethical positions. Such theories have to weave together views in semantics, epistemology, moral ps...

Life

It is one thing to believe in witches, and quite another to believe in witch-smellers.

Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State

He hadn’t altogether gotten it himself until this moment of seeing straight through to the soul of her.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

The mind is left bereft when it is nothing more than a tool of regurgitation.

Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good

The lowly have small ambitions, and are satisfied with small indulgences. They need not get fair treatment. They need only think that they do...

Last Argument of Kings

There is no such thing as notoriety in the United States these days, let alone infamy. Celebrity is all.

For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

The Constitution was intended less to resolve arguments than to make argument itself the solution.

The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789

Not knowing the answer to a question is not a valid excuse for making up a fairytale to explain it.

Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God

The usefulness of religion - the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good - is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It's not an argument that it's reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin...

Sam Harris

The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able ...

Eliot Spitzer

Traditional arguments for the existence of God and contemporary attempts to use fine-tuning and cosmology to back up the case for his existence always strike me as kinds of games, since hardly anyone believes on the basis of these arguments at all.

Julian Baggini

While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you.

Jonathan Haidt

I believe in what I believe, and I think after all these years I've heard a lot of arguments, and I'm convinced by the superiority of the arguments that are made on the conservative side. I think that's a better way to run a society.

Charles Krauthammer

Cynicism, like gullibility, is a symptom of underdeveloped critical faculties.

Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders

They weren't making much sense; she decided they were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses, but which can go on for ever, if both parties are willing.

Coraline

It’s a tiresome proposition, having to take up the work of the Enlightenment all over again, but it’s happened on your watch.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

If God creates morality, then morality is nothing more than the whimsy of a divine being blindly followed by humans.

Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God

We sometimes hear the argument, 'All the world' thinks this, or does that, given as a reason for our doing likewise; but that is an argument that should have no weight with the Christian, who is commanded not to be conformed to the world.

Hudson Taylor

Margo Channing: Birdie, you don't like Eve, do you? Birdie: You looking for an answer or an argument? Margo Channing: An answer. Birdie: No. Margo Channing: Why not? Birdie: Now you want an argument.

All About Eve

The world I want to live in is a world where everybody is a bit more uncertain about their arguments and is a bit more open to other people's arguments. I think that we can engage ideas without ad hominem attacks.

Adam Davidson