Quotes & Sayings About Being Wrong In An Argument

Remember: Life is short, break the rules — James Dean

He said the only thin worse than being wrong in a family argument was being right. — Megan Whalen Turner

I approach the creation-evolution dispute not as a scientist but as a problem of law, which means among other things that I know something about the ways that words are used in arguments. What first drew my attention to the question was the way the rules of argument seemed to be structured to make it impossible to question whether what we are being told about evolution is really true. For example, the Academy's rule against negative argument automatically eliminates the possibility that science has not discovered how complex organisms could have developed. However wrong the current answer may be, it stands until a better answer arrives. It is as if a criminal defendant were not allowed to present an alibi unless he could also show who did commit the crime. — Phillip E. Johnson

I might here find the magic word of power to banish the demon and set me free, so that I should no longer be a man beside myself. — George MacDonald

He hands her his pack, which he's emptied. "You mean me?" Justineau demands. "You think I'm not pulling my weight?" It would feel good to have a stand-up argument with Parks right then, but he doesn't seem keen to play. "No, I didn't mean you. I meant in general." "People in general? You were being philosophical?" "I was being a grumpy bastard. It's what I wear to the office most days. I guess you probably noticed that." She hesitates, wrong-footed. She didn't think Parks was capable of self-deprecation. But then she didn't think he was capable of changing his mind. "Any more rules of engagement?" she asks him, still hurting in some obscure way, still not mollified. "How to survive when shopping? Top tips for modern urban living?" Parks gives the question more consideration than she was expecting. "Use up the last of that e-blocker," he suggests. "And don't die. — M.R. Carey

My father took my hand and said, "let's go. What happened next was magical and beyond my wildest expectations. — Stephen Joseph Mitskavich

In the entr'acte Levin and Pestsov fell into an argument upon the merits and defects of music of the Wagner school. Levin maintained that the mistake of Wagner and all his followers lay in their trying to take music into the sphere of another art, just as poetry goes wrong when it tries to paint a face as the art of painting ought to do, and as an instance of this mistake he cited the sculptor who carved in marble certain poetic phantasms flitting round the figure of the poet on the pedestal. "These phantoms were so far from being phantoms that they were positively clinging on the ladder," said Levin. [ ... ] Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attain its highest manifestations only by conjunction with all kinds of art. — Leo Tolstoy

Peter Singer put it when discussing the use of biotechnology in food, "It is a mistake to place any moral value on what is natural. I mean many things are natural, including racism, sexism, war, and all sorts of diseases that we try to fight all the time. So the argument about [genetically engineered] food being unnatural and therefore wrong oversimplifies this debate."14 — Jayson Lusk

The feeling of being a digression not the link in the argument,
a new direction, an offshoot, the limb going on elsewhere,
and liking that error, a feeling of being capable because an error,
of being wrong perhaps altogether wrong a piece from another set
stripped of position stripped of true function
and loving that error, loving that filial form, that break from perfection
where the complex mechanism fails, where the stranger appears in the clearing,
out of nowhere and uncalled for, out of nowhere to share the day. — Jorie Graham

I love being married. It's great. But I hate arguing. I hate fighting. You know what I do now? When we get in an argument, I just take her side against me. It's just easier; it goes quicker. She's like, "What's wrong with you?" And I'm like, "I know! Damn it! Argh!" — Louis C.K.

Laine had been very proud of herself last night. Nicholas had talked about ghosts and magic and woven a bit of a spell himself. He'd sounded so convincing, so logical, so sad, that she'd found herself wanting to believe him. But testing prods at his argument had made him angry, and long years with Gavin had taught her that angry, defensive people shared the lousy habit of being wrong. — Stephen M. Irwin

Few societies have been stable enough and resilient enough to renew themselves in recognizable forms over long stretches of time. History is littered with civilizations that have been utterly destroyed. Everywhere, the self-assured confidence of priests, scribes and intellectuals has been mocked by unexpected events, leaving all their prayers, records and treatises wholly forgotten unless they are retrieved from oblivion by future archaeologists and historians. — John N. Gray

Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays. — Aldo Leopold

Death was a lens that would reveal things as they really were: what was important would assume its true importance; what was unimportant would recede into the shadows. — Robert Hellenga

To straddle the middle ground and win elections, we have to be in charge of the political agenda. This can only be done by not being beaten in the argument with our critics. They complain that I come down too hard on their arguments. But wrong ideas have to be challenged before they influence public opinion and make for problems. Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if my replies are as sharp as their criticisms. — Lee Kuan Yew

The only thing worse than being on the wrong side of an argument is to be on the right side with no one listening. — Evan Esar

I've known several men who believe women are only interested in relationships for money and comfort, and they aren't capable of really loving. And I've known women who insist men only want sex and don't know how to love. White people used to insist that blacks weren't capable of 'noble' emotions, that they were little more than animals. The same was said about Jews, Native Americans, you name it. It's an ancient argument. People keep dredging it up, trying to prove to themselves that people they don't understand are alien and don't warrant being treated well. And it is always - always - wrong. Despite our differences, all people are basically built from the same template. We are all equally admirable and equally flawed. — Jamie Fessenden

You cannot explain the past, even if it were the present. — Teresa Lakier

You have to predict and examine and understand every argument the other side is going to throw at you. It's not about being the one who's right. It's about showing them why they're wrong. — Cherrie Lynn

The only sort of pride that may serve a man well on that rarest occasion is his hatred of being wrong. It keeps his mouth shut, his ears open, and his research extensive. And yet this is also the deadliest because when he is in fact proven wrong, he absolutely refuses to acknowledge it. It then keeps his mouth open, his ears shut, and his research inexistent. — Criss Jami

Even when we're right, we may be wrong. If
in the process of debate
we've hurt the heart of another being, it matters not whether we issued a perfectly executed unbroken chain of logic. In the end, that's an argument we've lost, because whatever we might have gained in intellectual pride, we surely lost in character. — Shakieb Orgunwall

As we've discovered, we're wired for story and in the absence of data we will rely on confabulations and conspiracies. When our children sense something is wrong - maybe a sick grandparent or a financial worry - or when they know something is wrong - an argument or a work crisis - they quickly jump to filling in the missing pieces of the story. And because our well-being is directly tied to their sense of safety, fear sets in and often dictates the story. It's important that we give them as much information as is appropriate for their developmental and emotional capacity, and that we provide a safe place for them to ask questions. Emotions are contagious and when we're stressed or anxious or afraid our children can be quickly engulfed in the same emotions. More information means less fear-based story-making. — Brene Brown

To cultivate a pleasure in being wrong sounds perverse, yet losing an argument means escaping from an old idea and the acquisition of a new way of looking at things. — Edward De Bono

Not even a single German was murdered in Germany by an Islamist despite the fact that many Muslims were murdered by far-right Germans. — Jurgen Todenhofer