Quotes & Sayings About Controversies

It is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations, wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies. — Francis Bacon

I think what we are seeing is a vicious circle: by covering the controversies and the conflicting realities, it creates a much distorted perception of Islam and Muslims. When a minority is being taken as a majority, it creates a wrong image. — Tariq Ramadan

When we penetrate the smokescreen of controversies regarding false accusations, 'recovered memories', 'recanters', references to 'satanic ritual abuse' and the incorporation of elements of cultural myths into some accounts, we are left with the reality that in the vast majority of cases it is not the over-reporting or exaggeration of trauma that is the principal problem. Rather it is society's unwillingness to know, the perpetrators' strongly motivated efforts to hide their criminal acts, and the relative ease they are often afforded by societal institutions and practices in doing so. - The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Viewpoint) — Warwick Middleton

Peace can be promoted by the limitation of arms and by the creation of the instrumentality for peaceful settlement of controversies. But it will become a reality only through self-restraint and active effort in friendliness and helpfulness. — Herbert Hoover

Jobs had a tougher time navigating the controversies over Apple's desire to keep tight control over which apps could be downloaded onto the iPhone and iPad. Guarding against apps that contained viruses or violated the user's privacy made sense; preventing apps that took users to other websites to buy subscriptions, rather than doing it through the iTunes Store, at least had a business rationale. But Jobs and his team went further: They decided to ban any app that defamed people, might be politically explosive, or was deemed by Apple's censors to be pornographic. — Walter Isaacson

This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness. No, the majority of the Economists look with sincere resentment upon all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for organising revolutionaries, etc. — Vladimir Lenin

THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment. — John Stuart Mill

It is one of the misfortunes of our political system that parties are formed more with reference to controversies that are gone by than to the controversies which these parties have actually to decide. — Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess Of Salisbury

I have thoroughly gone through the subject of the Incarnation; and if it served you, could at any time give you the history from the beginning of the controversies on this subject, and of its present form. — Edward Irving

Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization. — Walter Lippmann

Victim-stancing - whereby the offender claims and believes that s/he is the real victim (one of the most prevalent sophistries in the false memory controversies) — Harvey L. Schwartz

Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. — John Stuart Mill

The thing that strikes me more and more, is the extraordinary viciousness and dishonesty of political controversy in our time. I don't mean merely that controversies are acrimonious. They ought to be that when they are on serious subjects. I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point. — George Orwell

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. — George Washington

Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis. — Michael Leunig

Peace" was the subject of the angel's carol in the night of the Lord's nativity; so "Peace" is the first word He pronounced in the ears of His disciples now that He is risen from the dead. So will it be when we meet Him face to face - we, with all our miserable failures, both individual and corporate; we with all our sins of omission and commission; we, with all our bitter controversies, and deplorable divisions. Not "Shame! shame!" but "Peace! peace! — Arthur W. Pink

Above all the studies in the world, study your own hearts; waste not a minute more of your precious time about frivolous & unsubstantial controversies. My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you, to feed you with the heart strengthening bread of practical doctrine, and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths, feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts, than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination, or a dry syllogistical inference. Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands and know not how to employ it. Remember you are at the door of eternity, and have other work to do. Those hours you spend upon heart-work in your closets, are the golden spots of all your time and will have the sweetest influence up to your last hour. — John Flavel

I decline all noisy, wordy, confused, and personal controversies. — Josiah Warren

For wordsmiths and masters of words, without necessarily being harsh with words, the words have a tendency to shoot straight to the hearts of people, and this either deeply touches them or deeply angers them. Like the apostles in all their loving controversies are those who are masters of words while combining this gift with truth. — Criss Jami

I was given the task of I.P.L. Chairmanship which I tried to perform to the best of my abilities. The tournament was organised well despite all the controversies. The stadiums were jam-packed, which proved that I.P.L. was still popular. — Rajeev Shukla

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. — Bertrand Russell

Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good. — Luc De Clapiers

however, that the controversies left Summers Minor comparatively — G.K. Chesterton

It becomes easier to handle controversies when you are a part of the film industry. I just take them with
a smile. — Katrina Kaif

A number of scientists with greatly different backgrounds can come up with completely different assessments. The discussions or controversies are endless. Once a year, we try to bring the most important discoverers together to exchange their experiences and knowledge. — Richard Leakey

That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred. — George Mason

The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science, the very latest controversies, are worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like 'General Relativity still governing planetary orbits' or 'Phlogiston theory remains false'? By the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition. The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian. It declares certain controversies over and visits serious consequences from social ostracism to vocational defenestration upon those who refuse to be silenced. — Charles Krauthammer

In all controversies, it is better to wait the decisions of time, which are slow and sure, than to take those of synods, which are often hasty and injudicious — Joseph Priestley

Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christian the question takes more specific form: What is the relation between the authority of ones own experience and that claimed for the scriptures, the ritual and the clergy? — Elaine Pagels

Lastly, Spurgeon reminds us that piety and devotion to Christ are not preferable alternatives to controversy, but rather that they should - when circumstances demand it - lead to the latter. He was careful to maintain that order. The minister who makes controversy his starting point will soon have a blighted ministry and spirituality will wither away. But controversy which is entered into out of love for God and reverence for His Name, will wrap a man's spirit in peace and joy even when he is fighting in the thickest of battle. The piety which Spurgeon admired was not that of a cloistered pacifism but the spirit of men like William Tyndale and Samuel Rutherford who, while contending for Christ, could rise heavenwards, jeopardizing 'their lives unto the death in the high places of the field'. At the height of his controversies Spurgeon preached some of the most fragrant of all his sermons. — Iain H. Murray

Pablo Picasso, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway, Mel Gibson, Lou Reed, Norman Mailer, Vanessa Redgrave, Van Morrison - each is distinguished by controversies unrelated to his or her art; by many accounts, some of them are not nice people at all. — Steve Erickson

Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians; and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine that they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern. — David Hume

I really thank my parents for giving me the good sense to not get into anything wrong. There are many people around who like controversies, and I actually wonder how do they do it. I don't have the courage to get into controversies. There are people who love it; I find it silly. — Saina Nehwal

The unknowable creates the greatest controversies. — Mason Cooley

The controversies between the proletariat and the middle class had to be smoothed out and bridged over by each getting to know and understand the other. — Fritz Sauckel

Whether or not these ideas alone would solve any of the problems discussed, I look forward to the day when SLA is more widely recognized as the serious and socially responsive discipline I believe it can be. Chapters like this one (unpleasant for writer and assuredly some readers alike) would no longer be needed. One could instead concentrate on the genuine controversies and excitement in SLA and L3A: the roles of nature and nurture; special and general nativism; child-adult differences and the possibility of maturational constraints; cross-linguistic influence; acquisition and socialization; cognitive and social factors; resilience; stabilization; fossilization, and other putative mechanisms and processes in interlanguage change; the feasibility of pedagogical intervention; and, most of all, the development of viable theories. — Michael H. Long

I don't create controversies. They're there long before I open my mouth. I just bring them to your attention. — Charles Barkley

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that. — Marcus Aurelius

The natural environment is not particularly hospitable to human life ... the key to having a good environment is improving it through work ... Energy is fundamentally an environmental improver and if we classify it that way it makes sense out of a lot of these controversies ... It's our obligation and our right to make [our environment] as good for human beings as possible. With that view, it's very easy for people to understand precisely the reason it's good to alter it - because it doesn't naturally come the way we need it to be. — Alex Epstein

Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions. — Tryon Edwards

Controversies remain over the details, but today no biologist doubts that evolutionary dynamics like mutualism, kinship, and various forms of reciprocity can select for psychological faculties that, under the right circumstances, can lead people to coexist peacefully.4 — Steven Pinker

Intellectual controversies tend to be like dog fights without the teeth, in which the barking not the biting does the damage. — Luis Fernando Verissimo

I, on the other hand, am very concerned about how word choice will affect my readers. For instance, in the description of Genesis, I chose the term 'good and evil' instead of 'right and wrong', which are basically two same terms. I wanted to use 'right and wrong' because it definitely will ignite more controversies than 'good and evil', but I chose to use the latter because I was afraid of the social influence that can come from reading my book, and although there is no adult material at all in the book, I could risk getting my book banned. — Andreas Laurencius

I regret exceedingly that the disputes between the protestants and Roman Catholics should be carried to the serious alarming height mentioned in your letters. Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.
[Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, 22 June 1792] — George Washington

Such insignificant differences as a few hundred years here or there were the motive for long, long controversies, both public and academic, which almost always resulted in the violent breakup of personal relationships and even in mortal enmities. — Jose Saramago

Anxieties and controversies were now as clearly traceable through it as woodgrain through varnish. — China Mieville

Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant q controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. — Anonymous

Therefore, whenever significant differences of opinion among faithful Christians occur, some of which continue to divide the church deeply today, neither surprise nor dismay should be allowed to separate the members of the Body from one another; nor should those differences be covered over with false claims of consensus or unanimity. To the contrary, such conflict must be embraced with courage and perseverance as all together continue to seek to discern God's will. In that understanding and commitment, we pledge ourselves to acknowledge and to embrace with courage, trust, and hope those controversies that arise among us, accepting them as evidence that God is not yet finished in sculpting us to be God's people. — Neal Christie

Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge, and it is idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking and full of simmering controversies - and it is free, and it is fast. — Nicholson Baker

As with Steinitz, Fischer's genius has often been concealed by controversies away from the board. Like Lasker, Fischer has raised chess to new financial heights despite frequent retreats from serious play. And, like Capablanca, Fischer is recognized by millions of non-players and has won the game many new enthusiasts. — Andrew Soltis

To many a mother's heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother's kiss. — Judith Ellen Foster

You live in days when a lingering, Lot-like religion abounds. The stream of profession is far broader than it once was, but far less deep in many places. A certain kind of Christianity is almost fashionable now. To belong to some party in the Church of England, and show a zeal for its interests
to talk about the leading controversies of the day
to buy popular religious books as fast as they come out, and lay them on your table
to attend meetings
to subscribe to Societies
to discuss the merits of preachers
to be enthusiastic and excited about every new form of sensational religion which crops up
all these are now comparatively easy and common attainments. They no longer make a person singular. They require little or no sacrifice. They entail no cross. — J.C. Ryle

All students of man and society who possess that first requisite for so difficult a study, a due sense of its difficulties, are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole. It might be plausibly maintained that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied; and that if either could have been made to take the other's views in addition to its own, little more would have been needed to make its doctrine correct. — John Stuart Mill

There will be no end to angling controversies for there is no one best way for everyone to fish. — Lee Wulff

The owners of factories are more concerned than other classes and interests in the intelligence of their laborers. When the latter are well-educated and the former are disposed to deal justly, controversies and strikes can never occur, nor can the minds of the masses be prejudiced by demagogues and controlled by temporary and factious considerations. — Howard Zinn

Perhaps Obama is often slow to nail controversies because he needs time to live inside them for a while in his head. It's unnerving for the rest of us, but even the haters, one feels, are made to think more deeply than they'd like before they return to the bickering and the games. — Tina Brown

Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. — Marcus Luttrell

But I hope that by the decision and authority of wise princes that sometime devout and learned men from the churches of other nations and of ours may be summoned together to deliberate about all the controversies and that there be handed down to posterity one harmonious, true, and clear form of doctrine, without any ambiguity. Meanwhile, as far as possible, let us encourage the union of our churches with measured advice. — Philipp Melanchthon

Controversies are a package deal in this industry. You just have to understand that and accept it. — Akshay Kumar

In mathematics there are no true controversies. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests ... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times ... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy. — William Howard Taft

Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of a new scientific truth will be more important than the squabbles of diplomats. Even the newspapers of our own day are beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of fresh philosophical concepts as news. The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere 'stick' in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis.
Progress along such lines will be impossible while nations persist in the savage practice of killing each other off. I inherited from my father, an erudite man who labored hard for peace, an ineradicable hatred of war. — Nikola Tesla

If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now. — Mohamed ElBaradei

When you observe that today's controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others. — Idries Shah

I don't care about controversies. I am a young woman with an opinion about certain things. I can't be diplomatic. I am a feminist, and as long as I can be the voice of hundreds of girls out there, I will speak my mind. I don't care what other people think. — Sonam Kapoor

There are very interesting controversies within evolution; however, whether evolution occurs is not one of them. It definitely does. — Richard Dawkins

Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul. — George Santayana

The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere 'stick' in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis. — Nikola Tesla

There is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies,
his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth. — John Milton

Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true today, and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good. Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other
there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other. The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow
its contribution to the welfare of all. — William Jennings Bryan

One of the principal obstacles to the rapid diffusion of a new idea lies in the difficulty of finding suitable expression to convey its essential point to other minds. Words may have to be strained into a new sense, and scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words. On the other hand, a happy nomenclature has sometimes been more powerful than rigorous logic in allowing a new train of thought to be quickly and generally accepted. — Arthur Schuster

I also believe - and hope - that politics and economics will cease to be as important in the future as they have been in the past; the time will come when most of our present controversies on these matters will seem as trivial, or as meaningless, as the theological debates in which the keenest minds of the Middle Ages dissipated their energies. Politics and economics are concerned with power and wealth, neither of which should be the primary, still less the exclusive, concern of full-grown men. — Arthur C. Clarke

HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions. — Ambrose Bierce

If Melanchthon were alive today, he might not weep because of controversies that surround the Lord's Supper, but he might well sorrow because of our indifference to its meaning and importance. — Erwin W. Lutzer

I am used to controversies. — Sharad Pawar

An alliance with France was enlisted in the war for independence from Britain, then loosened in the aftermath, as France undertook revolution and embarked on a European crusade in which the United States had no direct interest. When President Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address - delivered in the midst of the French revolutionary wars - counseled that the United States "steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world" and instead "safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies," he was issuing not so much a moral pronouncement as a canny judgment about how to exploit America's comparative advantage: the United States, a fledgling power safe behind oceans, did not have the need or the resources to embroil itself in continental controversies over the balance of power. — Henry Kissinger

For too long, our controversies seem to boil down to conservatives and liberals (or, if you prefer, traditionalists and progressives) talking past each other for the benefit of stirring up their loyalists, as partisans do in the primary campaigns of electoral politics. The rest of us are expected to line up with our team just as soon as they show their colors. — Ken Wilson

Aliveness, he will teach, is a gift available to all by God's grace. It flows not from taking, but giving, not from fear but from faith, not from conflict but from reconciliation, not from domination but from service. It isn't found in the upper trappings of religion -rules and rituals, controversies and scruples, temples and traditions. No, it springs up from our innermost being like a fountain of living water. It intoxicates us lie the best wine ever and so turns life from disappointment into a banquet. — Brian D. McLaren

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. — Felix Frankfurter

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society. — George Washington

The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day. — William Bennett

Notable enough, however, are the controversies over the series 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ... whose sum was given by Leibniz as 1/2, although others disagree ... Understanding of this question is to be sought in the word "sum"; this idea, if thus conceived - namely, the sum of a series is said to be that quantity to which it is brought closer as more terms of the series are taken - has relevance only for convergent series, and we should in general give up the idea of sum for divergent series. — Leonhard Euler

No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels? — Rudolf Virchow

It may be added, that the same change took place in dogmatic teaching, as in the exposition of Scripture. This indeed was still more to be expected, for the issue of controversies and the decrees of Councils had given to the doctrinal statements of the Fathers an authority, or rather prerogative, which was never claimed for their commentaries. Accordingly, S. John Damascene's work on the Orthodox Faith in the viiith century is scarcely more than a careful selection and combination of sentences and phrases from the great theologians who preceded him, principally S. Gregory Nazianzen. A comment or scholia by the same author upon S. Paul's Epistles have come down to us, which are mainly taken from S. Chrysostom, but with some use of other expositors. — Thomas Aquinas

Every religion I know of has changed its views with respect to concrete controversies over long periods of time. People's views about the morality of homosexuality are likely to undergo some change, even though they're making judgments based on their religious beliefs. Because in fact, religion is an extremely durable, and yet flexible, way of trying to apprehend what's good and what's bad in the world. In fact, its durability comes from its flexibility. Now, speaking from inside a religion, it's hard to talk that way. — Jack Balkin

I have appeared on 'The Dr. Oz show' and recognize that Dr. Oz does not hold the exact same viewpoints about all controversies in human nutrition that I do, but he has a huge base of knowledge and is open-minded and willing to re-consider a position based on emerging evidence on multiple scientific and health issues. — Joel Fuhrman

The issue, then, is not, What is the best way to teach? but, What is mathematics really all about? ... Controversies about ... teaching cannot be resolved without confronting problems about the nature of mathematics. — Reuben Hersh

Most centrist Democrats ... try to distance themselves from controversies that recall the 1960s. There are journalistic centrists as well, who avoid hard truths for the sake of acceptance and legitimacy. — Tom Hayden

It is not all that common, but there is a phenomenon where autism could get worse at about age two. There are some controversies whether regression is a prominent part of autism, but many people feel that it's very hard to diagnose autism before you can begin really talking in detail with a child. — Gerald Fischbach

Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they go towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way. — John Donne

I am not a very social person and have a few friends who have been with me since school and college. I hate going to parties and events and would rather sit at home and watch TV. Parties are the place where controversies happen. — Sonakshi Sinha

Oh, he was ever a leading spirit in controversies," Bernard said. "I well remember his sentiments. He believed that men, when confronted with a vast plenitude of anything, feel an irresistible urge to take it all, then to smash and destroy what they cannot use." (4th Estate, London, 2016, p. 211.) — Annie Proulx

It might be plausibly maintained, that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied. — John Stuart Mill

The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find. — Freda Adler

Keep your finger on the pulse of society, take controversies with a grain of salt, lick your finger and then lift it to the wind; always know what is going on, my friend, so this world can never steer you wrong again. — Criss Jami

Char Miller's lively, insightful account of the life and world of American forester Gifford Pinchot fills a vitally important gap in environmental and conservation history. Anyone captivated by the issues and controversies surrounding the preservation and development of the nation's natural heritage should read this engaging, carefully researched biography. — Carolyn Merchant

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

I'm never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington. — Barack Obama

I confess I take perverse delight as a theologian in the controversies surrounding postmodernism. — Stanley Hauerwas