Debated Quotes

#1. If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.

Andrew Jackson

#2. For God does not want to be believed in, to be debated and defended by us, but simply to be realized through us.

Martin Buber

#3. In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims[.

Samuel Alito

#4. What distinguishes the campaign finance issue from just about every other one being debated these days is that the two sides do not divide along conventional liberal/ conservative lines.

James L. Buckley

#5. For a moment, I debated whether I should tell someone about the words I'd started writing down, but I couldn't. In a way, I felt ashamed, even though my writing was the one thing that whispered okayness in my ear. I didn't speak it, to anyone.

Markus Zusak

#6. The network and local TV angle of broadcast television has received a black eye for not properly debating within the news issues that should be debated, instead of shuffling them of to television advertising.

Mark E. Hyman

#7. In my view, ideas and other intellectual productions are more interesting, more indicative of intelligence, and more productively debated than IQ alone.

Christopher Langan

#8. Television has given Pakistan a truly open national forum for the first time in its history. Ideas are debated, leaders are assessed and criticised, and a nation of 170 million people is finally discovering, together, what it thinks.

Mohsin Hamid

#9. I am sure it will be mentioned and debated but from my standpoint I know who is in the Hall of Fame. A lot of them don't belong in the Hall of Fame. If someone wants to debate me, check the stats.

Gary Sheffield

#10. I don't perceive an anti-religious agenda, especially with regard to Christians and Christianity. The issue being debated was creationism, the idea that the Earth is 6,000 years old. As I understand it, this involves the Bible's Old Testament exclusively.

Bill Nye

#11. Why people fall in love has been debated since before Shakespeare's sonnets.

Joe Bruno

#12. For a long time, I debated about whether I would make movies or join the circus and work as a clown.

Denis Lavant

#13. For a heterosexual man - I know that's a hotly debated topic, but only among those who don't know me - I have grown to really appreciate fashion.

Rodger Berman

#14. Humanism is not a pompous philosophy to be talked and debated about by a handful of intellectuals - it is the purest form of moral compass, which defines the civilized heart of thinking humanity.

Abhijit Naskar

#15. Of course I had written a film about Elizabeth I, and I loved the Tudor period, and I think at the time Working Title and I had debated on whether to do Elizabeth I or Henry VIII. I'd always wanted to do Henry VIII. Like Elizabeth, I'd had this feeling that it had never properly been addressed.

Michael Hirst

#16. I almost wished he'd debated Cassidy in her ridiculous Harry Potter costume, so she could've wiped the smirk off his muggle face.

Robyn Schneider

#17. She had debated, in the frivolity of the beginning, whether to build a hole or a tower; a hole, because she was fond of hobbits, or a tower - well, a tower for many reasons, but chiefly because she liked spiral staircases.

Keri Hulme

#18. Democracy as a promise means that society can never be just enough and that the self-reflection and struggles that enable all members of the community to participate in the decisions and institutions that shape their lives must be continually debated, safeguarded, and preserved at all costs.

Henry Giroux

#19. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, the Clinton administration debated the merits of paying for AIDS testing and counseling of vulnerable populations overseas.

Barton Gellman

#20. The only way to conduct an effective collaboration is to debate the things upon which you disagree. If one doesn't manage to bring the other around to his point of view, then whichever collaborator feels the most passionate about the thing being debated ought to get his way.

Christopher Golden

#21. Religion is good, as it controls the people that don't have the intelligence to make worthwhile decisions. However, it could be debated as to whether this makes up for the atrocities committed by these people.

Ryan Hofmeister

#22. You don't ask people to sacrifice their lives until the nation has debated and committed to the mission. It's immoral.

Tim Kaine

#23. Our political differences, now matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.

John McCain

#24. The 'role of the theatre' is much debated (by almost nobody, of course), but the thing defines itself in practice first and foremost as a recreation. This seems satisfactory. TOM STOPPARD 1993

Tom Stoppard

#25. One thing I will commit to the people of Ohio is, when I'm a U.S. senator and there's issues being debated in Washington, when I'm a U.S. senator they'll know exactly what my position is.

Josh Mandel

#26. The idea that you can cross a dimension, or commune with the dead, or life on other planets ... these are the great unknowns. They will be debated as long as their is life. I think there's an inherent interest from people in what that stuff is.

James Roday

#27. The Fed's policy choices can always be debated, but the quality and commitment of the Federal Reserve as a public institution is second to none, and I am proud to lead it.

Ben Bernanke

#28. The senior thesis of Hillary D. Rodham, Wellesley College class of 1969, has been speculated about, spun, analyzed, debated, criticized and defended. But rarely has it been read, because for the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency it was locked away.

Bill Dedman

#29. It was determined, as shown in the report of the Commission, which I can read to you, but I know you are familiar with the report. It states there was disagreement on this issue, particularly as the subject was debated, that there were different opinions about it.

John Sherman Cooper

#30. I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely.

Joseph Stiglitz

#31. For a long time I wanted to become a theologian ... now, however, behold how through my efforts God is being debated in astronomy.

Johannes Kepler

#32. One day, we will look back and wonder how on earth we used to believe that depression was a lifestyle choice, only to be debated and taken seriously when an A List film star took his life, and the world filled with people saying how shocked and saddened they were.

Alastair Campbell

#33. Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#34. I debated free trade in college. I came out as a free trader. I'm a free markets guy. I'm an Adam Smith guy.

Sam Wyly

#35. The Donald has the political players rising on their hind legs in defense of their realm. And he has hitherto shattered the totems and taboos these players enforce. Debated as never before are vexations like immigration, Islam, and, yes, the legitimacy of the Republican National Committee.

Ilana Mercer

#36. Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.

Gore Vidal

#37. Religion is the most widely debated and least agreed upon phenomenon of human history.

Georgia Harkness

#38. Specialists debated whether to pull the plug, but Texas only executes people on death row, not when they're brain-dead, because it might mean culling most of their politicians.

Michael Robotham

#39. At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.

William J. Brennan

#40. The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.

C. Northcote Parkinson

#41. After the Dark Revolt, where the Obsidians rose in arms against the iron ancestors, the Board of Quality Control debated destroying the entire Color. You know how they gave them religion, stole their technology.

Pierce Brown

#42. Long before man traveled into space, rabbis debated how one would observe Shabbat there-not because they anticipated space travel but because Buddhists strive to live with questions and Jews would rather die.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#43. I watched the Republican debate. At one point, the candidates said there are no classes in America, a point then hotly debated by all six rich white guys that were there.

Craig Ferguson

#44. In a sad twist of fate, the bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives the same day that terrorists struck again.

Jim Sensenbrenner

#45. They argued about the weather, sports, sex, war, race, politics, and religion; neither of them knew the subjects they debated, but it seemed that the less they knew the better the could argue.

Richard Wright

#46. Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.

David Herbert Donald

#47. Fast food is hugely important in the life of a comedy writer. All we do is order in, and what we're going to eat is hotly debated.

Mindy Kaling

#48. When Gore Vidal was coming up, there were three major channels, and he could count on a big audience when he debated someone like William F. Buckley on TV.

Jay Parini

#49. being debated by the UN that involved imposing new sanctions on Iran. A similar surveillance document from August 2010 reveals that the United States spied on eight members of

Glenn Greenwald

#50. As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern deliberation.

Edward Gibbon

#51. Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, 'that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

John Adams

#52. My being gay is not a social issue; it's a fact. It's not something to be debated. It's a reality.

Jose Antonio Vargas

#53. I debated whether to tell them I had long since abandoned my writing career and moved into radishes and fraud, but decided the timing was wrong.

Susan Juby

#54. I've gone from the most trusted man in America to one of the most debated.

Walter Cronkite

#55. The subject of criminal rehabilitation was debated recently in City Hall. It's an appropriate place for this kind of discussion because the city has always employed so many ex-cons and future cons.

Mike Royko

#56. Talon glanced wistfully at his drink as he debated what should take priority. 'Coffee ... Daimons ... Coffee ... Daimons ...

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#57. The Bay of Pigs is one of America's most infamous Cold War blunders, and it has been studied, debated, and dramatized endlessly ever since.

Robert Dallek

#58. I debated between law school and divinity.

Cory Booker

#59. Any spending should be debated openly on the floor of the House and voted on in open session, with the American people having a chance to watch and listen.

Marsha Blackburn

#60. All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.

Denis Diderot

#61. I can't do a film after having debated it. I am unable to do a film while discussing it with my team. I issue directives. I do not achieve it otherwise.

Hayao Miyazaki

#62. Instant telecommunication allows better and updated information, lessons learnt and problems encountered to be exchanged and debated, it alerts us more quickly to problems and brings to many households around the world visions and information which hopefully spur us to action.

Carol Bellamy

#63. The age of the Earth is a hotly debated issue among evangelicals. Old Earthers believe, like most scientists, that the universe is billions of years old. Young Earthers measure the age of the universe in terms of thousands of years.

Norman Geisler

#64. I debated whether or not to pin the setting down to a particular date but in the end I decided to leave things vague. It depends how fast technology improves.

Jonathan Trigell

#65. Without warning, I stomped my heel down on Detective Hawke's toe. Hard. He squealed and did a one-footed jig. I debated on clapping along.

Ann Charles

#66. Violence never settles anything should be debated by the ghosts of Hitler and Stalin, with the city fathers of Carthage as referees.

Robert A. Heinlein

#67. I debated in high school! If you told things that weren't true or just made things out of whole cloth, you were penalized. It's too bad they don't apply the same standards to presidential candidates as they do to high school students.

Mark Hamill

#68. The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.

Glenn Greenwald

#69. If what you're asking is how I debated whether or not to love her the answer is I didn't. Not at all. It just happened. I didn't ever question it; by the time I realized what was happening, it was already done.

Sarah Dessen

#70. (...) there's a rule that no question affecting the general public may be finally decided until it has been debated for three days.

Thomas More

#71. We debated long over the situation for it is a very difficult question and all of us recognize its difficulty.

Henry L. Stimson

#72. We debated whether the future was like a line you can't see or like a line that is not yet drawn.

C.S. Lewis

#73. The nurse looked surprised. 'You're a bit high on the totem pole to be taking statements.' Carol debated momentarily how to describe her relationship with Tony. 'Colleague' was insufficient, 'landlord' somehow misleading and 'friend' both more and less than the truth. She shrugged. 'He feeds my cat.

Val McDermid

#74. Philosophers have debated the meaning of life for centuries, rarely coming to the same conclusion.

Stephen King

#75. Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known - even amongst those who haven't accepted it - and it's recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.

Maurice Strong

#76. Scholars have long debated whether capital markets lead to appropriate levels of saving and investment for future generations.

David L. Weimer

#77. The question was heatedly debated of how much Western culture should be brought into China.

Chen-Ning Yang

#78. Immigration is everyone's business: it is one of the most important national issues. The idea that it is too dangerous to be debated is a mockery of democracy. It is too important not to debate.

Geoffrey Blainey

#79. I scrutinized the lyrics to every worship song, debated the content of every sermon. I rendered verdicts regarding the frequency of communion and the method of baptism. I checked the bulletins for typos. In some religious traditions, this particular coping mechanism is known as pride.

Rachel Held Evans

#80. Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated.

G.K. Chesterton

#81. Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself. A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning.

Terry Pratchett

#82. It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals,
so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and responsible debaters get on their legs.

James Russell Lowell

#83. For when moral convictions are reduced to arbitrary preferences, then they can no longer be debated rationally.

Nancy Pearcey

#84. I believe our foreign assistance should be scrutinized, should be debated, and that we should strike the right balance, but in all cases the foreign assistance that we provide around the world should be used to further our national security interests.

John Sununu