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~He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our
helper.
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-Edmund Burke
Reflections on the Revolution in France,
In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris,
1790
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In a philosophical dispute, he gains most
who is defeated, since he learns most.
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-Epicurus
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It cannot be demanded that we should prove
everything, because that is impossible; but we can require that all
propositions used without proof be expressly declared to be so. . . .
Furthermore I demand-and in this I go beyond Euclid-that all of the methods
of inference used must be specified in advance.
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-Gottlob Frege
Qtd. in Irving Copi and Carl Cohen,
Introduction to Logic, Tenth
Edition, 1998
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As long as a word remains unspoken, you are
its master; once you utter it, you are its slave.
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-Avicebron (Solomon Ben Judah Ibn-Gabirol)
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Never completely encircle your enemy. Leave
him some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if trapped.
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-Alex Haley
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Nothing has an uglier look to us than
reason, when it is not on our side.
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-Lord Halifax
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In a family argument, if it turns out you
are right--apologize at once.
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-Robert Heinlen
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*I always prefer intelligent
disagreement to undigested agreement.
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-John Hospers
Private correspondence to Ayn Rand, November 12,1960
Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995
Chapter 7, "Letters to a Philosopher"
Michael S. Berliner, ed.
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~Wisedome without Honesty
is meere craft, and coosinage. And therefore the reputation of Honesty must
first be gotten; which cannot be, but by living well. A good life is a maine
Argument.
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-Ben Jonson
Timber: or, Discoveries, made vpon men and matter: as they have flow'd
out of his daily Readings ; or had their refluxe to his peculiar Notion of
the Times, 1640
"Discoveries", Topic 17, "Probitas. sapientia." ("Honesty and Wisdom")
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~After we came out of the
church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious
sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the
universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his
doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget
the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force
against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it THUS.'
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-James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791
"Saturday, August 6, 1763"
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~It is a melancholy
reflection that arguments, like men, are apt to be deceivers. . . .
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-Benjamin Jowett
Introduction to his 1871 translation of Plato's
Phaedo
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The very man who has argued you down, will
sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.
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-C.S. Lewis
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There is no point in arguing with partisan
supporters. Their views are their identities. Nothing you can tell the most
phlegmatic follower will shake his faith; it will only make him think worse
of you.
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-Michael Lewis
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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man
in argument.
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-William G. McAdoo
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The power I exert on the court depends on the
power of my arguments, not on my gender.
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-Sandra Day O'Connor
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*If you want to defeat any
kind of vicious fraud-comply with it literally, adding nothing of your own
to disguise its nature.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Pt. Two : Either-Or, Ch. IV, "The Sanction of the Victim"
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~. . . . argument for a week,
laughter for a month,
And a good jest for ever.
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-Henry, Prince of Wales, a character in
William Shakespeare's
The First Part of King Henry the
Fourth, 1598
Act II, scene ii
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The test of a man or woman's breeding is how
they behave in a quarrel.
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-George Bernard Shaw
The Philanderer, 1893
Act II
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*[T]he speed of the tongue
should always be some seconds less than the speed of thought.
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- D-503, the hero in Yevgeny Zamyatin's
We, 1920-1921
Second Entry
Mirra Ginsburg, trans., 1972
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