Quotes About Debate

#1. If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent.

John Ridley

#2. Within the reigning social order, the general public must remain an object of manipulation, not a participant in thought, debate, and decision.

Noam Chomsky

#3. Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it's less wasteful.

Bill Watterson

#4. Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

Amos Bronson Alcott

#5. After a battle royale debate, the fight between [Marco]Rubio and [Donald]Trump gets ugly.

Chris Hayes

#6. And while I at length debate and beate the bush, There shall steppe in other men and catch the burdes.

John Heywood

#7. Perfect goodness can never debate about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom cannot debate about the means most suited to achieve it.

C.S. Lewis

#8. Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -but no opinion.

Hannah Arendt

#9. We need to teach our children how to debate the major life issues. Debate strengthens their beliefs and enables them to defend themselves against ideologies that are going to come their way.

Jim Rohn

#10. We mistake politics for legislative debate. You can be passionate without being personal.

Richard Dreyfuss

#11. I admired the way McCain worked on campaign finance reform. I admired the way Nancy Pelosi stiffened the Democrats' spine during the health care debate. I admire the way Barack Obama has raised a dog in the White House without ever putting it on the roof of the car for a vacation drive.

Gail Collins

#12. But beyond the hysteria of phantom death panels, where is the abomination? Show me the provisions that will hurt consumers, because if you think a $110 billion a year tax break for working-class Americans to buy private health insurance is a government takeover, I welcome the debate.

Jim McDermott

#13. We are creating a political demolition derby, not a presidential debate. Those strange impulses in the American soul that have produced mud wrestling and The Gong Show seem to have claimed the national campaign.

Hugh Sidey

#14. I am happy to debate the past with the Prime Minister ... I have a big dossier on his past, and I did not even have to sex it up.

Michael Howard

#15. Capturing the terms of the debate through the adroit use of language has allowed the GOP to bamboozle millions of people about their own material interests.

Mike Lofgren

#16. I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that theater, even more than film, is a place of public debate.

Tony Kushner

#17. If you don't accept there is a problem, then it is hard to debate things.

Johann Lamont

#18. The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.

Carl Schmitt

#19. Where there are so many, all speech becomes a debate without end. But two together may perhaps find wisdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#20. The opening of a public debate about male homosexuality in Britain in 1952 was the conflict of the small back room, in another sphere.

Andrew Hodges

#21. Unfortunately, science cannot be reduced to short, catchy phrases. And if this is all that the general public can comprehend, it's no wonder that we spend so much of our time in the interminable debate about belief in God, or lack thereof.

Greg Graffin

#22. In Parliament we debate on and we decide the laws that are going to govern the country.

Diane Abbott

#23. Why not start over because every promise made is not kept, why not start over so the American people can debate [the health care law] again?!

Sean Hannity

#24. Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program, and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate.

Paul Ryan

#25. The daughter of debate That still discord doth sow.

Elizabeth I

#26. If you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.

Richard Rohr

#27. Whether splendidly isolated or dangerously isolated, I will not now debate; but for my part, I think splendidly isolated, because the isolation of England comes from her superiority.

Wilfrid Laurier

#28. The Newtown massacre created a tipping point on the gun debate in America.

Mark McKinnon

#29. And no one ever expect me to get in the race. They didn't think I would get on the debate stage. I did. They didn't think I'd do well in New Hampshire. I finished second. And so we went to South Carolina. In a short period of time later, two weeks ago people in South Carolina had no clue who I was.

John Kasich

#30. The Constitution is very clear on the - on the declaration of war or reacting to international crimes - crimes against nations. It is the role of Congress to debate and authorize this before the President acts precipitously.

Joe Pitts

#31. The government considers the aborting of innocent unborn children a natural right. Yet, there is widespread debate still about whether the death penalty for convicted murderers is "cruel and unusual punishment."

Joseph Farah

#32. Debate is healthy and no one in this chamber - starting with me - has a monopoly on being right.

Ted Kulongoski

#33. For in meditation, debate has no place.

Alcoholics Anonymous

#34. It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

Elbert Hubbard

#35. We've become more tolerant because we're tired of the debate.

Suzanne Fields

#36. I'd want to have a fair moderator. I thought that Mitt Romney was treated very unfairly in the third debate [in 2012].

Donald Trump

#37. An opinion is not a momentary thing but a process of thinking, shaped by the continuous acquisition of knowledge and the activity of questioning, discussion, and debate.

Neil Postman

#38. Shutting down discussion is self-defeating and impedes progress. We need to talk and listen and debate and refute and instruct and learn and evolve.

Sheryl Sandberg

#39. Are you a fun-loving Tigger or a sad-sack Eeyore? Pick a camp. I think it's clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate!

Randy Pausch

#40. Unfortunately, some judges evidently do not regard a debate in Parliament on new immigration rules, followed by the unanimous adoption of those rules, as evidence that Parliament actually wants to see those new rules implemented.

Theresa May

#41. The debate that has been conducted in terms of "creation versus evolution" has gotten caught up with all kinds of other debates, and this has provided a singularly unhelpful backdrop to the would-be serious discussion of other parts of the Bible.

N. T. Wright

#42. A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

Nelson Mandela

#43. Since I have never one a debate let me tell you how not to lose one.

Richard M. Nixon

#44. I enjoy the debate ... I haven't met a single person in Congress yet that I dislike. It's not about moderating your views: it's about being able to talk about them and defending them in a way that's uplifting to people.

Kevin Cramer

#45. The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives.

Jim DeMint

#46. There is a limitation on debate, which is unlike other bills, for 20 hours, but there is no limitation on amendments. In other words, Republicans if they wanted to, and I suspect they do, could offer literally thousands of amendments and keep Senate in session for weeks and months.

Rick Santorum

#47. This isn't a little debate society. That's high school stuff.

Sydney Schanberg

#48. Earlier tonight the second Republican debate took place here in California. With 10 men and only one woman, everyone thought they were watching 'The Bachelorette.'

Conan O'Brien

#49. Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people's, preserve dignity.

Doug Stanhope

#50. He's the thing my teenage fantasies were made of. Woodsy male scent. Muscular, yet trim frame. A quick wit that always finds a way to pull me into a debate.

Kendall Ryan

#51. The instant she made a point of telling me I was just as good as them, I saw that the whole question was open to debate and she was cheering me on because I was on the losing team

Sarah Bird

#52. The Internet has compromised the quality of debate.

Noam Chomsky

#53. When every one of your arguments is characterized an attempt to bring back slavery or resegregate lunch counters, it's a little hard to have any sort of productive debate.

Ann Coulter

#54. We turn now over the debate of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero ... The controversy has raised profound questions about religious tolerance and prejudice in the United States.

Christiane Amanpour

#55. I don't get debate agains guns at all. Because we have it after every mass shooting. And now a terror attack. And the proposals that are talked about almost always have nothing to do with this specific event.

Chuck Todd

#56. I heard Dennis Kucinich say in a debate, 'When I'm president ... and I just wanted to stop him and say, 'Dude.'

Jon Stewart

#57. I never, ever, when I entered this process of running for president of the United States, thought I would be excluded from the debate table. Ever. What does two terms as governor get you?

Gary Johnson

#58. John Kerry said today he wants to debate President Bush once a month. Hey good luck, if Bush couldn't make it to the National Guard once a month, he's not going to show up for this.

Jay Leno

#59. To cut 1930s jobless, FDR taxed corps and rich. Govt used money to hire many millions. Worked then; would now again. Why no debate on that?

Richard D. Wolff

#60. Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build bridges of understanding.

Dale Carnegie

#61. We can't accommodate terrorism. When someone uses the slaughter of innocent people to advance a so-called political cause, at that point the political cause becomes immoral and unjust and they should be eliminated from any serious discussion, any serious debate.

Rudy Giuliani

#62. We have to yet really seriously debate the constitutional issues and whether or not we're willing to give up more freedom in order to have more security.

William Cohen

#63. I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence. It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink. We can debate its origins endlessly and search for villains on ideological grounds, but the reality is pure arithmetic.

Mitch Daniels

#64. So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat
Over everything debatable and combatable
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life
Particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

Ogden Nash

#65. I'm a big believer in debate and difference of opinion.

Naomi Wolf

#66. There is a great case to be made for using religion to win arguments, as long as you only debate with other believers.

Josh Hanagarne

#67. As long as anger, paranoia and misinformation drive our political debate, there are unhinged souls among us who will feel justified in turning to violent remedies for imagined threats.

David Horsey

#68. Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.

Abraham Cowley

#69. Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.

W. H. Auden

#70. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this.

Sebastiao Salgado

#71. I think film should raise questions, not give answers. I think film should challenge people to reflect, debate and get by themselves to the answer that fits them.

Diego Luna

#72. An inaccurate use of words produces such a strange confusion in all reasoning, that in the heat of debate, the combatants, unable to distinguish their friends from their foes, fall promiscuously on both.

Maria Edgeworth

#73. One of the big questions in the climate change debate: Are humans any smarter than frogs in a pot? If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, it won't jump out. Instead, it will enjoy the nice warm bath until it is cooked to death. We humans seem to be doing pretty much the same thing.

Jeff Goodell

#74. Political debate is political debate and that's fine. That's healthy.

Rachel Notley

#75. It's very, very difficult I think for us to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law.

Tom Udall

#76. I believe that the freedom of speech should be protected, but so should a family's right to privacy as they grieve their loss. There is a time and a place for vigorous debate on the War on Terror, but during a family's last goodbye is not it.

Dave Reichert

#77. It's often the case that when a critic uses an embarrassingly accurate term to describe what a wrong-doer is doing, the wrong-doer protests: "Why don't you use my white-washed, conscience-soothing euphemism?" Such euphemisms, they claim, help promote "civilized debate."

Steve Kangas

#78. I'm not a pundit. I'm not an analyst. I don't want to participate in the existing debate that's going on about whether or not you should be able to have as many guns as you want to have or that guns are even the problem.

Michael Moore

#79. What is normal is up for debate.

Steven Redhead

#80. It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Sen. McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Sen. McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems; it hurts the country.

Phil Gramm

#81. The thing that I try to remember is that in the briefing room it's not a debate. I'm not supposed to go in there and win a debate with the press corps. If that's what I try to do, then I'm going to lose.

Josh Earnest

#82. Offendedness is just about the last shared moral currency in our country. And, I'm sorry, but it's really annoying. We don't discuss ideas or debate arguments, we try to figure out who is most offended.

Kevin DeYoung

#83. Science ... looks skeptically at all claims to knowledge, old and new. It teaches not blind obedience to those in authority but to vigorous debate, and in many respects that's the secret of its success.

Carl Sagan

#84. The debate around the ageing population should, in my view, focus much more on how we grow the active, working population.

Nicola Sturgeon

#85. Of course, logic is not the only tool used in debate, and it is helpful to be cognizant of the others. Rhetoric likely tops the list, followed by concepts such as the "burden of proof" and Occam's razor.

Ali Almossawi

#86. Maybe it's a sick fantasy of mine, but I am really looking forward to a debate between a general and a deserter. Plus, I really want to hear President Bush have to say, 'Yes, General, No, General.'

Michael Moore

#87. I believe in a free market of ideas and not shying away from debate.

Kevin McCarthy

#88. I have a rule for working out if the root problem of something is, in fact, sexism. And it is this: asking 'Are the boys doing it? Are the boys having to worry about this stuff? Are the boys the centre of a gigantic global debate on this subject?

Caitlin Moran

#89. I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.

Moses Mendelssohn

#90. I say the Intelligent Design-evolution debate misses the point. It trivializes God and it trivializes science. The universe is like the hand of God. The world is God's body.

Michael Dowd

#91. Obviously, we're all going to die at some point. Whether or not we are fated to die in some way I think is debatable. I just don't know which side to debate.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

#92. The debate over same sex 'marriage' has engaged the heartfelt feelings and convictions of millions of Americans.

Elliott Abrams

#93. There's a constant debate over nature or nurture - they're inseparable.

Craig Venter

#94. A debate actually is a policy issue but I will say this - gosh, if you guys ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage.

Ted Cruz

#95. I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

Damien Hirst

#96. From the viewpoint of economic democracy, the capitalism-socialism debate was a debate between private and state capitalism (i.e., the private or public employment system), and the debate was as misframed as would be a debate between the private or public ownership of slaves.

David P. Ellerman

#97. A victory is scored when your opponents are forced to debate issues they would rather leave ignored

Owen Jones

#98. The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

Charles De Gaulle

#99. The discourse of the West and the attitudes of its leaders are important because they influence public debate in Turkey.

Safak Pavey

#100. It's not about some principled debate as to whether I should focus on what I have, or on what I don't have. Rather, it's about being thankful that I have the privilege to enjoy the former, and the opportunity to contemplate the latter.

Craig D. Lounsbrough