Best Arguing Quotes & Sayings

Novels with a "thesis" don't interest me. They just don't - novels that want to "show" something, that want to "argue" something specific. I don't read novels that are looking to convince me of anything. — Sergio Chejfec

A judgmental attitude helps neither ourselves nor others. Arguing or preaching rarely changes other people. Even if our opinions are justified, criticizing others usually makes them wary and defensive. And it takes our attention away from our own lives, which we can change. — Diane Dreher

Harvey and I grew up in Queens, N.Y. My brother and I shared a room for 18 years until we went away to college. When we were kids, after our father said, 'Lights out,' he also exclaimed, 'No more talking. Time for sleep.' But we'd stay up late, arguing over statistics, who the best center fielder was - Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. — Bob Weinstein

Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language. — David Crystal

I don't believe that we are what we do although many thinkers argue otherwise. I believe that what we do is, very often, a poor approximation of what we are
an imperfect manifestation of a much better totality. Even the best of us sometimes bite off, as it were, less than we can chew. — Donald Barthelme

The main thing it usually ends up doing is revealing that the things they were arguing about weren't all that important. People often test to decide which color drapes are best, only to learn that they forgot to put windows in the room. — Steve Krug

Dads. It's time to tell our kids that we love them. Constantly. It's time to show our kids that we love them. Constantly. It's time to take joy in their twenty-thousand daily questions and their inability to do things as quickly as we'd like. It's time to take joy in their quirks and their ticks. It's time to take joy in their facial expressions and their mispronounced words. It's time to take joy in everything that our kids are. — Dan Pearce

Because of his gift for language and his endless practice at arguing at Hatfield, my father was effective at holding his own, verbally, in this bear garden. He noticed that an offensive personal remark, however irrelevant, was often the best way of fighting back. After one boy with a long, foolish sharp-ended chin had baited him insistently for minutes on end, he came out with 'your remarks, unlike your chin are utterly pointless' - with a deflating result far better than he could possibly have hoped. — Hugh Cecil

Do good work and let that speak for itself. Don't waste time arguing with someone. Instead, show them in your work. That's easier said than done, but it really is the best solution. No one can argue with good work. — Megan Alexander

This is Trenicia, the queen of the warrior women of the Isle of Akalla. Different places have different traditions and different customs. On the Isle of Akalla, the women rule, and the women do the fighting."

"What do the men do?" the horseman Ekial asked curiously.

"As little as they possibly can," the warrior woman said in a sardonic tone. "Over the years, they've foisted just about everything off on us. We have to grow the food, hunt the meat, and fight the wars. The men sit around getting fat and arguing with each other about something they call 'philosophy' - most of which is pure nonsense. — David Eddings

Kaushik, what about a picture?" my father suggested. I shook my head. I had left my camera, my father's old Yashica, at school. "But you always have it with you." That look of irritated disappointment, the one that had appeared the day my mother died and was missing now that he'd married Chitra, passed briefly across my father's face. "I forgot it," I said. It was true, I did always have the camera with me. Even on quiet weekends when I came home and my father and I saw no one I would bring it, taking it with me on walks. This time I had left it behind, knowing that I would not want to document anything. "I don't understand," my father said. "Neither do I," I replied. "You haven't wanted a picture of anything in years." "That's not true." "It is." We were stating facts and at the same time arguing, an argument whose depths only he and I could fully comprehend. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Some scholars have been arguing that a civilizational clash between organized religions is the next step in human history. — Mary Douglas

Like most authors, I'm a raging egomaniac. I know that about myself. And I know that, if I had internet access, I would waste countless hours looking up things about myself, writing fake posts about how great I am and arguing with people who don't like my work. It saves me a lot of time and frustration to just stay out of the loop. — Bentley Little

From millions of students, thousands of studies, and hundreds of components that influence student learning, he concludes his work by arguing that learning occurs most effectively when two things happen: (1) each teacher sees his or her classroom through the eyes of his or her students, and (2) each student sees him- or herself as his or her own best teacher (Hattie, 2009, p. 238). — Tony Frontier

The doorbell rang before she could get to hair and makeup. She answered to Kate and Jasmine arguing about the best way to get to her house, even though it was already too late since they were, in fact, at her house. "Hey, Kris." Jasmine — K.F. Breene

You could argue the banks are much better capitalised than they were going into the crisis, and everyone's in a much more vigilant state because they still remember the crisis. — Michael Lewis

Dads. Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child's entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them? — Dan Pearce

I remember my parents quarrelling. They would talk as if they were against each other's ideas about Trotsky, but it was just a couple arguing. — Maria De Medeiros

I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies - though shifting the balance matters - but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others. — Rebecca Solnit

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. — Abraham Lincoln

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age. — James Thurber

Because if you look at the debates now, and I have answered it except for 90 seconds by and large it's been viewed as every debate I have had I have been among the best people. And in some cases people argue the best person in those debates. I have been asked questions you never could have anticipated. — Marco Rubio

I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I'm a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child's life, and in a child's level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. — Dan Pearce

When your vision is a biblical vision, the people arguing with it are not arguing with you. They are arguing with God. — Matthew Carter

I do not recommend ignorance and I am not saying that there is no truth, but I am arguing that the best way to think about truth is to call it the best interpretation that anybody has come up with yet while conceding that no one knows what is coming next. There are lots of competing truths battling with one another for their place in the sun, and the truth is that we have to learn to cope with the conflict. The skies do not open up and drop The Truth into our laps. — John D. Caputo

'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!' And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society — Trenton Lee Stewart

Like I have said all along, I have the best doctor of all, and that is God. You can't argue with a guy like that. — Terrell Owens

There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works. — Will Rogers

Problems rarely exist at the level at which they are expressed. If you are arguing for more than ten minutes then you are probably not discussing the real conflict. — Kare Anderson

Many are those who can argue; few are those who can converse — Amos Bronson Alcott

Everyone is always leaving each other, chasing down the next seeming opportunity - home or body. Where does it stop? Does it ever? I want to believe it all leads to something grander than the imagination, grander than the end-stop of the Pacific. Or is that it: You get to the place where you land; you are tired now; you settle. You settle. You build a home and raise a family. There are years of eating and arguing, working and waking. There are years of dying. No one knows what the last image will be. — Bich Minh Nguyen

All I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty - and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I'm telling you I arrived at it irrationally. — Sam Harris

If someone says that I'm the best at anything, I always just agree with them. I'm certainly not gonna argue. — Gilbert Gottfried

I happen to like debating, and I like to debate like a lawyer, and I can argue any points to death, and I will. — Shonda Rhimes

Jake assumed that he would be the one to die. Marco had seen this instantly. He wasn't arguing in favor of the awful future we'd seen. He was arguing for the life of his best friend. — K.A. Applegate

You know what she's made of."
"Yeah, good stock, good breeding, a hard head and a hunger to win." She flashed him a smile as they approached the kitchen door. "I've been told that describes me. I'm half Irish, Brian, I was born stubborn."
"No arguing with that. A person might make the world a calmer place for others by being passive, but you don't get very far in it yourself, do you?"
"Look at that. We have a foundation of agreement. Now tell me you like spaghetti and meatballs."
"It happens to be a favorite of mine."
"That's handy. Mine, too. And I heard a rumor that's what's for dinner." She reached for the doorknob, then caught him off guard by brushing a light kiss over his lips. "And since we'll be joining my parents, it would probably be best if you didn't imagine me naked for the next couple of hours."
She sailed in ahead of him, leaving Brian helplessly and utterly aroused. — Nora Roberts

To be honest, i put myself in the category of people who are best able to give form to their ideas by arguing — John Gianvito

My friends ... they usually rib me about how I just sleep in and watch Oprah and that I don't really have a proper job. I've given up arguing now, so I just agree with them, even though half the time I realise I've started work before they have. Still, it's best to keep the romantic idea alive. If they call around midday and ask if they woke me, I always say yes. — Markus Zusak

The revolutionary environmentalists twist science to get what they want, saying they're using the "best available science" to determine public policy, when in fact these are code words for cherry picking from a repertoire of biased science studies. Arguing with the Greenies' faulty science is like shouting into the wind, because they will disregard or minimize evidence that disputes any position they are trying to assert. Your points will be ignored, and you will be demonized. — Brian Herbert

Debates about justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward. Despite our best attempts to make law neutral on such questions, it may not be possible to say what's just without arguing about the nature of the good life. — Michael J. Sandel

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. — Dale Carnegie

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging ... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs! And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need? Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm? — David Brin

You're arguing in a circle," I said. "In a spiral," said Lamiel, "which is the best way to argue. — Harry Blamires

You have to perform to the best of your ability, and if you have to argue stringently, if you have to persist and to state your case strongly, then you do it. — Bronwyn Bishop

Arguing is a waste of time, because our attitudes need a quantum leap, not our knowledge. Arguing is a sport at best and a bad attitude at worst. — Stefan Emunds

Even though Graham and I went back to arguing and stealing socks and hiding each other's toothbrushes in the litter box, I didn't forget that Graham didn't think I needed a best friend, because either it meant he thought I was cool enough to handle everything alone or - and this was what I hoped - it meant that he was my best friend, quietly, forever, no matter what.
I mean, after all, whose skates had I been wearing? — Hannah Moskowitz

That's right. Obama didn't lie to you when he said, 'if you like your plan, you can keep it.' Why? Because, you sillies, you DIDN'T REALLY like the plan you chose for yourselves! No arguing. Barack Obama knows best, and he'll tell you whether you actually liked your insurance plan or not. — Sarah Palin

On their way to America, the Pilgrims argued about the best maximum length for a routine. After arguing about it for the entire trip, they arrived at Plymouth Rock and started to draft the Mayflower Compact. They still hadn't settled the maximum-length question, and since they couldn't disembark until they'd signed the compact, they gave up and didn't include it. The result has been an interminable debate ever since about how long a routine can be. — Steve McConnell

On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is Do the gods exist or do the not? It is difficult you may say to deny that they exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There were five children in my family, and arguing was how we used to entertain ourselves. — Jack Straw

I beg you to stop your arguing and listen. The prophets speak of this time, when the Chosen One of God will cleave us apart, separating the believers from those who will be cast into the outer darkness. Have you ever in all your days seen a time when the division has been clearer? Have you ever known a time when miracles rained down from an empty sky, when the prophets' words were so clearly being fulfilled? — Janette Oke

The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat. — Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Arguing face to face can be a powerful thing, and done deftly and persistently, it can reinforce and build respect itself, even across major differences. — Anthony Weston

The Canadian-Australian mathematician Norman Wildberger has posted an essay arguing that real numbers are a joke. — Max Tegmark

In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war. — John Yoo

Poetry has no investment in anything besides openness. It's not arguing a point. It's creating an environment. — Claudia Rankine

When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. Filling pages and people with inspiration. When my thoughts don't want to rest on a page, we argue. We argue that one merely is ready just too comfortable playing in The Nile [denial] river. So we compromise. We grow,
water metaphors
and plant simile trees
of golden-almond
manifested love dreams.
Then at that moment, we forgot what we were arguing about.
Beauty can do that for you.
That's the beauty of writing. — Antonia Perdu

One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing. — William Stanley Jevons

I'm not a policy expert - I am only arguing that there is more to an education than an economic ticket. — Rebecca Mead

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. — Marcus Aurelius

To assume that any couple goes without arguing is just nonsense. — Seal

Servile doubt argues an impotence of mind, that says we fear because we dare not meet misfortunes. — Aaron Hill

They say that "he who flies highest, falls farthest" - and who am I to argue? But we can't forget that "he who doesn't flap his wings, never flies at all. — Hunter S. Thompson

This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There's a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you! — Richard Feynman

I mean, there's no arguing. There is no anything. There is no beating around the bush. 'You're fired' is a very strong term. — Donald Trump

Do everything without complaining and arguing, 15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. 16 Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ's return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. — Anonymous

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. — Justin S. Holcomb

We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit. — David Suzuki

My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. — Paul Theroux

I always get the better when I argue alone. — Oliver Goldsmith

I also like to take my glasses off and look at people. The faces around me, all of them, seem kind and pretty and smiling. What's more, when my glasses are off, I don't ever think about arguing with anyone at all, nor do I feel the need to make snide remarks. All I do is just blankly stare in silence. — Osamu Dazai

...we must be careful to avoid the error of reductionism, as if the whole of the Spirit's ministry can be reduced to Christology, as if the Spirit does nothing but glorify Christ. It's the mistake of arguing that the primary purpose of the Spirit's coming is the sole purpose of his coming. The principal aim of the Spirit in what he does is to awaken us to the glory, splendor, and centrality of the work of Christ Jesus. But this does not mean that it is less than the Spirit at work when he awakens us also to his own glory and power and abiding presence. — Sam Storms

The surest sign that you haven't any sense is to argue with one who hasn't. — Laurence J. Peter

He never had been good at arguing with women; they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years. — Martin Cruz Smith

And I remember looking at the two of you and seeing you together and thinking how you were really differant with him. Much calmer. And you didn't shout at one another. And it made me so sad because it was like you didn't really need me at all. And somehow that was even worse than you and me arguing all the time because it was like I was invisible.
And I think that was when I realised you and your father were probably better off if I wasn't living in the house. — Mark Haddon

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. — G.K. Chesterton

No one can argue with a testimony, it is not a debatable issue. It is there to be accepted or rejected. — Bruce R. McConkie

I've been arguing on the side of a dirt road with a petulant singer who's wearing a guitar on his back. This entire scene is a mess, and maybe we're a mess, too. But it's still him and still me, and there's still that feeling of possibility - the one that sparks like a Roman candle inside me as his lips touch mine. And it's a start. — Emery Lord

GUIL: It [Hamlet's madness] really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic allusions, mistaken identities, arguing his father is his mother, that sort of thing; intimations of suicide, forgoing of exercise, loss of mirth, hints of claustrophobia not to say delusions of imprisonment; invocations of camels, chameleons, capons, whales, weasels, hawks, handsaws
riddles, quibbles and evasions; amnesia, paranoia, myopia; day-dreaming, hallucinations; stabbing his elders, abusing his parents, insulting his lover, and appearing hatless in public
knock-kneed, droop-stockinged and sighing like a love-sick schoolboy, which at his age is coming on a bit strong.
ROS: And talking to himself.
GUIL: And talking to himself. — Tom Stoppard

But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. — Hermann Hesse

Well, she thought. Well, well. Here we are, probably for the first time, just talking to each other. Not arguing, not being sarcastic, just talking. It's nice.
It was surprisingly nice. And the strange thing was, she knew Ash thought so, too. They understood each other. Over the table, Ash gave her a barely perceptible nod. — L.J.Smith

Bridget is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Two sides of herself, always arguing. She is tired of the fight, the constant struggle between a muddied version of good and evil, where right feels wrong and wrong feels really good. — Siobhan Vivian

Percy: I'll walk down to the cabins and Connor and Travis are stealing stuff from the camp store, and Silena is arguing with Annabeth trying to give her a new makeover, and Clarisse is still sticking the new kids' head into the toilets. It's nice that some things never change. — Rick Riordan

I can tell you what I see. I can tell you what I know about you. I can tell you how I feel. I can't show you what you really are. But arguing with you won't accomplish anything. I think we've both had our share of people trying to fix us. It doesn't work. We can only fix ourselves. Let ourselves heal. — Jasinda Wilder