Debater Quotes & Sayings

Politics is the art of persuasion. Good ideas die because due to a lack of charisma or character. — A.E. Samaan

The object of the new school is to teach reasonable doubt. Not the unreasonable doubt of the wild-eyed heckler, but the evidence-based doubt of the questioning scientist and the reason-based doubt of the skilled debater. — Seth Godin

The difference between a debater and a polemicist is that unlike debaters, who try to seek a common ground, a polemicist intends to establish the truth of a controversial point of view while refuting the opposing point of view - there is no room for compromise. — Henrik O. Lunde

Negative thinking is something we all do. The difference between the
person who is primarily optimistic and the person who is primarily
pessimistic is that the optimist learns to become a good debater. Once
you become thoroughly aware of the effectiveness of optimism in your
life, you can learn to debate your pessimistic thoughts. — Steve Chandler

The cooking profession, while it's a noble craft and a noble calling, 'cause you're doing something useful - you're feeding people, you're nurturing them, you're providing sustenance - it was never pure. — Anthony Bourdain

I worked with a guy, I can't think of his name, him and his wife, and one of them had a saxophone and the other played drums. It wasn't a regular job but I did a few gigs around home with them. — Earl Scruggs

Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater. — Lord Chesterfield

You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater. — Donald Rumsfeld

You cannot argue with [Satan], for he is the greatest debater of all time. — Billy Graham

She was a real talker, said whatever come into her mind. In a good way. Mostly." She was silent again for a few beats, but I could see her thinking back behind her eyes so I said nothing. "You know, I thought maybe she'd be a lawyer or college debater or something someday, because she was just ... she never stopped to measure her words. Like me. I think everything I say is stupid. Ann thought everyone should hear everything she had to say. — Gillian Flynn

The poet was, of course, always present to assist the debater. Though the logic of Lewis's Christian apologetics may be fallible, the imagination of the writing with its brilliantly-conceived analogies is itself enough to win a reader to his side. As Austin Farrer expressed it, We think we are listening to an argument; in fact we are presented with a vision; and it is the vision that carries conviction. — Humphrey Carpenter

Showing the skills more of a high-school debater than a barrister, Brandis blustered in the Senate that 'people do have a right to be bigots'. — Peter Van Onselen

A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue - which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands. — William F. Buckley Jr.

Governor Romney is a good debater. — Jim Talent

Never forget, Jules. The choices we make, make us. — Cassandra Clare

Respect, recognition, and reward flow out of performance. — N. R. Narayana Murthy

Others may predict my future but only I can determine my destiny. — Jeffrey Fry

Bistami watched his fellow scholars around the fire in the evenings, intent on a point of doctrine, or the questionable isnad of a hadith, and what that meant, arguing with exaggerated punctilio and little debater's jokes and flourishes, while a pot of thick hot coffee was poured with solemn attention into little glazed clay cups, all eyes gleaming with firelight and pleasure in the argument; and he thought, these are the Muslims who make Islam good. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Christopher Hitchens, the late essayist and sot, was a man who purposefully cultivated a lot of friends of a certain type - rich, self-important, generally dim-witted and hence easy for a well-spoken Oxbridge debater to impress - and he electrified Washington D.C. society mainly by not being a completely charmless bore. — Alex Pareene

So let me get this straight. You think it is ok to murder a child in the womb, but it's not ok to kill a serial killer." Debater 2: "That's not what I said. I denounce murder in any form, but abortion is not murder. — Suzanne L. Davis

Professor von Mises has a splendid analytical mind and an admirable passion for liberty; but as a student of human nature he is worse than null and as a debater he is of Hyde Park standard. — Ludwig Von Mises

From the solitude of the wood, (Man) has passed to the more dreadful solitude of the heart. — Loren Eiseley

Anything can go wrong in a debate, and Obama is not a perfect debater. — Ron Fournier

I'm not a debater. I get things done. — Donald Trump

A good debater can be a good communicator. You have to communicate when you're president of the United States, and communicate effectively with the American people, and with the world. — Dan Quayle

You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene. — Bruno Dumont

I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even. — Veronica Roth

[N]early every creationist debater will mention the second law of thermodynamics and argue that complex systems like the earth and life cannot evolve, because the second law seems to say that everything in nature is running down and losing energy, not getting more complex. But that's NOT what the second law says; every creationist has heard this but refuses to acknowledge it. The second law only applies to closed systems, like a sealed jar of heated gases that gradually cools down and loses energy. But the earth is not a closed system
it constantly gets new energy from the sun, and this (through photosynthesis) is what powers life and makes it possible for life to become more complex and evolve. It seems odd that the creationists continue to misuse the second law of thermodynamics when they have been corrected over and over again, but the reason is simple: it sounds impressive to their audience with limited science education, and if a snow job works, you stay with it. — Donald R. Prothero