Quotes & Sayings About Debates

Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity. — Eugene Fama

He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself. These would meet in private and afterwards communicate their decisions to the others. The animals would still assemble on Sunday mornings to salute the flag, sing 'Beasts of England' and receive their orders for the week; but there would be no more debates. In — George Orwell

I can't wait for the Republican debates to start and there's literally 65 guys on one stage. — Conan O'Brien

I think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates. — Juan Cole

Ever since the field of biology emerged in the United States and Europe at the start of the nineteenth century, it has been bound up in debates over sexual, racial, and national politics. And as our social viewpoints have shifted, so has the science of the body. — Anne Fausto-Sterling

The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution. — Steven Pinker

The point of this example is that policy debates are not matters of rational discussion on the basis of literal and objective categories. The categories that shape the debate are moral categories; those categories are defined in terms of different family-based conceptions of morality, which give priority to different metaphors for morality. The debate is not a matter of objective, means-end rationality or cost-benefit analysis or effective public policy. It is not just a debate about the particular issue, namely, college loans. The debate is about the right form of morality, and that in turn comes down to the question of the right model of the family. — George Lakoff

I've been very successful at negotiating debates. — Donald Trump

I'm pretty good at sticking to what I know. You don't see me social commentating on health-care or presidential debates. I talk about what I know because I'm petrified of being wrong. — Gary Vaynerchuk

Meanings with no purpose are useful for meaningless debates on what the "meaner" meant. And that's what #politics is all about - misreading. — Will Advise

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions. — Caleb Cushing

In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest. — William Penn

Telling the truth and being ethical often keeps people from political power, but doing the right thing, always, without exception, is all that matters in the long run, and is ultimately powerful. That's why the true heroes of the civil rights struggle were never politicians. They were humble folk on a mission, enduring sit-ins and organizing marches and debates. When they began to succeed, the politicians, seeing an opportunity, followed them. — Paul Theroux

I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing. — James L. Buckley

That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems. — Georg Brandes

Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows. — Mark McKinnon

With increasing fervor since the 1980s, sustainability has been the watchword of scientists, environmental activists, and indeed all those concerned about the complex, fragile systems on the sphere we inhabit. It has shaped debates about business, design, and our lifestyles. — Jamais Cascio

Debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates. It's pretty hard to be able to sit and lay out your ideas and your concepts with a one-minute response. — Rick Perry

I think a lot of moral debates are not over what is the basis of justice, but who gets a ticket to play in the game. — Steven Pinker

The heated debates about Homo sapiens' 'natural way of life' miss the main point. Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasn't been a single natural way of life for Sapiens. There are only cultural choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities. — Yuval Noah Harari

My wife and I have just returned from Belgium where, courtesy of the hotel TV, we acquired a new perspective on the Iraq war. The difference between BBC, ITV and CNN on the one hand and the channels from Belgium, Germany and France on the other was stark and disturbing. The 'coalition' output, which strongly influences public opinion in Britain, comprises reports from 'embedded' reporters telling us about the mud and dust, press conferences by generals describing the tip of the iceberg they wanted us to see and studio debates among armchair pundits. — David Walker

Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established. — Thomas Paine

I usually call these endless discussions "religious debates," because they have a lot in common with most discussions of religion and politics: They consist largely of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can't be proven - supposedly in the interest of agreeing on the best way to do something important — Steve Krug

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together — Joseph Addison

But I do think its necessary to have debates. — Geraldine Ferraro

I think that there is an ongoing conspiracy in the philosophical community, an organized form of self-deception, as in a cult, to simply all together pretend that we knew what "first-person perspective" (or "quale" or "consciousness") means, so that we can keep our traditional debates running on forever. — Thomas Metzinger

The overarching issue, as I see it, is the elitism of America's political system; the fact that regular, ordinary Americans aren't considered in policy debates or legislation, and regularly get shafted by the powers-that-be in Washington. — Jerry Springer

This shriveled conception of democracy has solid roots. The founding fathers were much concerned about the hazards of democracy. In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, the main framer, James Madison, warned of these hazards. Naturally taking England as his model, he observed that "in England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place," undermining the right to property. To ward off such injustice, "our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation," arranging voting patterns and checks and balances so as "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," a prime task of decent government.19 — Noam Chomsky

When we approach theology as facts to look at, it is easy to allow certain theological debates to replace Scripture as our primary theological subject matter. These debates - such as the categorization of God's attributes, the nature of predestination, the age of the earth, and the continuation of certain spiritual gifts - are not unimportant issues, and sometimes the church must return to them for extended theological reflection. However, the church's mission is derailed when theology becomes little more than a discipline helping people know what to believe about these particular issues. These debates are necessary to the task of theology, but they are not primary. The primary role of theology is to cultivate in us a love for and knowledge of — Daniel L. Akin

Some felt as if 'Charlie Hebdo' was obsessed with its 'Screw Allah' stance. It's a sort of provocation that caused a lot of debates. — Patrick Chappatte

Ambitious and thought-provoking, Higher Education in America represents an informed and informative addition to ongoing debates at the national, state, and institutional levels about the aims higher education ought to aspire to and how best to achieve them. — David M. Brown

It's been just a year since the RNC committed to revamp the way they help our candidates with its 'Growth and Opportunity Project,' and already there are signs of improvement. From new leadership and initiatives in the digital arena, to improving the GOP ground game (as we just saw with David Jolly's victory in FL-13), to the historic decision to restructure the primary calendar and primary debates, the RNC's steps will help keep the House and to take the Senate in 2014, win the White House in 2016, and build for the future. Looking forward to more progress in the months ahead. — Karl Rove

We have a natural constant craving for leadership. Democracy is always a fragile and imperfect achievement. Yet a distinct feeling of malaise in our political culture lingers. There is something missing from our public debates. — Tim Soutphommasane

I had the good fortune to spend hours with my parents around the dinner table having debates on politics and economics. — Dambisa Moyo

I don't mind the debates, they're good for America, but we shouldn't be out there attacking each other all the time. — William J. Clinton

The great flaw of all these administrative techniques is that, in the name of equality and democracy, they function as a vast "antipolitics machine", sweeping vast realms of legitimate public debate out of the public sphere and into the arms of technical, administrative committees. They stand in the way of potentially bracing and instructive debates about social policy, the meaning of intelligence, the selection of elites, the value of equity and diversity, and the purpose of economic growth and development. They are, in short, the means by which technical and administrative elites attempt to convince a skeptical public--while excluding the public from debate--that they play no favorites, take no obscure discretionary action, and have no biases but are merely taking transparent technical calculations. — James C. Scott

And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you. — Fred Frith

For all its faults, it is partisanship - based on core principles- that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders. — Tom DeLay

While we're having all these debates about how the book is being destroyed by the Kindle, we have to remember that narrative will not be affected at all because it's part of our makeup as a creature on this planet. — Jim Crace

Problem was, all this is new. In English at school we study a grammar book by a man named Ronald Rideout, read Cider with Rosie, do debates on fox-hunting and memorize 'I Must Go Down to the Seas Again' by Jason Masefield. We don't have to actually think about stuff. — David Mitchell

I've been doing these conventions for 20 years, and we used to at least have debates about issues. Nothing is happening basically at this convention, other than speeches. — Susan Estrich

Trees are right at the heart of all the necessary debates: ecological, social, economic, political, moral, religious. — Colin Tudge

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. — Joe Biden

The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer. — David Antin

Presidential primary debates are an important part of our political process. But the media has wrested complete control from the parties and candidates over everything, including the number, the format, the qualifications, and the moderators. And they've become a circus. — Mark McKinnon

What if we in the Body of Christ could get past the doctrinal debates that have divided us and pray that the Holy Spirit would do it again? What if we asked Him to empower us to bring hope to the thousands - millions even - who are coming to recognize the spiritual void in their lives and are just waiting for someone to help? What if the church went out to tell people about Jesus in confidence that the Holy Spirit had already gone before them to prepare the way? — Jim Wall

The stakes involved in Washington policy debates are often so high
whether we send our young men and women to war; whether we allow stem cell research to go forward
that even small differences in perspective are magnified. The demands of party loyalty, the imperative of campaigns, and the amplification of conflict by the media all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion. Moreover, most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives
professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems. I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values
indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people. — Barack Obama

You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other and separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives, cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. This may do for young men with whom passion is enjoyment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds. Tranquility is the old man's milk. — Thomas Jefferson

The process of learning to be holy, like the process of learning to pray, may properly be thought of as a school - God's own school, in which the curriculum, the teaching staff, the rules, the discipline, the occasional prizes and the fellow pupils with whom one studies, plays, debates and fraternizes, are all there under God's sovereign providence. — J.I. Packer

Most of the debates I've participated in have been on Christian college campuses or on secular campuses; so, largely before a student audience. — Dinesh D'Souza

To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful. — Mark McKinnon

Our civic life is heavily marked - indeed, pocked - by debates in which each side is so certain of its position that any movement is effectively impossible. For that matter, debate - in its original sense of "to consider something, to deliberate" - is impossible. We wind up with so much sound and fury and nothing gained. — Leah Hager Cohen

Year after year in Washington, budget debates seem to come down to an old, tired argument: on one side, those who want more government, regardless of the cost; on the other, those who want less government, regardless of the need ... Government has a role, and an important role. Yet, too much government crowds out initiative and hard work, private charity and the private economy ... Government should be active, but limited; engaged, but not overbearing. — George W. Bush

Mr. Romney is quick to uphold rules great and small. During primary debates, when his rivals spoke out of turn or exceeded their allotted time, he would sometimes lecture them. When supporters ask Mr. Romney to sign dollar bills or American flags, he refuses and often gives them a little lesson about why doing so is against the law. — Jodi Kantor

The United States is in the midst of many spirited political debates about national priorities and public spending ... However, we have found that science is an area where both political parties can find common ground, and in which political change does not necessarily create discontinuities. — John Gibbons

The Pages of Gup, now that they had talked through everything so fully, fought hard, remained united, support each other when required to do so, and in general looked like a force with a common purpose. All those arguments and debates, all that openness, had created powerful bonds of friendship between them. — Salman Rushdie

There needs to be debates, like we're going through. There needs to be townhall meetings. There needs to be travel. This is a huge country. — George W. Bush

We will not put a lid on opinions. On the contrary, it is more important than ever that political debates are open and free, even on the most difficult issues. Especially on the most difficult issues. The task is to encourage controversial debates in a form that strengthens democracy. — Jens Stoltenberg

It's interesting when you read the debates in parliaments between MPs about whether they should give women a vote. It's a lot of fear; it is fear of change. It's fear if women get to vote, family structures will break down. Women will stop having children. Women won't vote for war. — Sarah Gavron

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

You cannot simply read the Quran,not if you take it seriously.You either have surrendered to it already or you fight it.
It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.
From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side. — Jeffrey Lang

If there was one fact that sent me hurtling off to write 'Politics Lost,' it was when I learned that John Kerry had focus-grouped Abu Ghraib. We knew about the Justice Department memo in June of 2004, and Kerry didn't raise that in any one of his three debates with George Bush. — Joe Klein

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

Debates must take place in an atmosphere of courtesy. — John Allen Fraser

The debate over the inherent benefits of Pax Americana should have been settled long ago. But history only settles great debates for as long as people can remember the history. — Bret Stephens

I know it sounds trite but I wanted to make a difference. Political debates with my father had been fraught because he was uncompromising and explosive but if he taught me one thing it was to air my views. — Vince Cable

Smoke and mirrors' is a useful metaphor for the ways in which organised abuse has chided conceptualisation and understanding. The chapter provides an overview of cite often incendiary debates over organised abuse before going on to suggest that critical theories on gender, crime and intersubjectivity may offer new insights into the phenomenon. — Michael Salter

This question lies at the heart of the debates over justification: Is the promissory covenant subsumed under (or absorbed into) the covenants of law, resulting in a covenatal nomism? Or are the two covenant always distinguished and, on the point of justification, to be treated in fact as antithetical means of inheriting eternal life? P.22 — Michael S. Horton

Rationality is the way to lead life. So high time,
let's stop feeding our dreams and shake hands with the reality. — Parul Wadhwa

There is nothing wrong with being wrong. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Debates are boring. — Mario Cuomo

Listening to the debates about public schools on the Christian Right, one hears plenty of opposing opinions and a great deal of confusion. Some want to change the schools, others want to leave them. But the smart money seems to know what it is doing. It provides support for programs like the Good News Club, which slowly erode the support for public education in the country at large and in their own constituency in particular. And then it lays the groundwork for dismantling public education in favor of a private system of religious education funded by the state. — Katherine Stewart

In my view, republican primary debates ought to be moderated by people who would vote in a primary. — Ted Cruz

In his early days at University, he'd been too green to realize winning debates, even private ones, would lose him friends. — T. Baggins

Dehaene even allows himself a few moments of (justifiable) annoyance at the way that "childhood reading experts" continue their debates about the best strategies for teaching reading to children in complete ignorance of a large and growing body of work on how the human brain processes written language. — Alan Jacobs

[W]hether it is debates over men sharing housework and child-rearing, the 'crisis' of marriage and behind that the broader crisis of male-female relationships in adjusting to social change, or the increased sympathy for (or at least tolerance of) lesbian and gay demands for equal legal rights, all these developments in heterosexuality are usually approached and conceptualised in piecemeal form and rarely provoke any debate about the changing nature of heterosexuality itself. — Richard Dunphy

By now, a younger generation of women participate in extremely lively debates in which questions of gender, sexuality and representation on screens and across media are approached from perspectives that had not yet been articulated in the 1970s. — Laura Mulvey

I find it unnecessary, useless and frankly a bit unnecessary to get into all sorts of debates over President Obama's religion or the authenticity of his birth. I know for some people that it is an obsession. It is not with me. — Mike Huckabee

The founding American generations did something that almost no others have ever done. They read the fine print! They taught their children to read bills, laws, court cases, legislative debates, executive decrees, and bureaucratic policies. They read them in schoolrooms and at home ... They said they would consider their children uneducated if they didn't read such things. — Oliver DeMille

Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else. — Criss Jami

My favorite forgotten President in American history is James Buchanan, who in defending really robust and sharp-elbowed debates said, "I like the noise of democracy. I like the sound of people in the streets making noise." — Jeff Sharlet

It's too hard to present an opinion on something that's not true to who you are. It's much easier to base opinions and debates off of fact and your true heart on things. To me that just comes quite naturally, and it's also about being open to what the debate is about and hearing the other side. — Elisabeth Hasselbeck

"Did God have a mother?" Children, when told that God made the heavens and the earth, innocently ask whether God had a mother. This deceptively simple question has stumped the elders of the church and embarrassed the finest theologians, precipitating some of the thorniest theological debates over the centuries. All the great religions have elaborate mythologies surrounding the divine act of Creation, but none of them adequately confronts the logical paradoxes inherent in the question that even children ask. — Michio Kaku

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. — Benjamin Franklin

With official slavery gone, there were big parliamentary debates about how to sustain the same regime. What would stop a former slave from going up into the hills, where there was plenty of land, and just living happily there? They hit on the same method that everyone hits on: try to capture them with consumer goods. So they offered teasers - easy terms, gifts. And then when people got trapped into wanting consumer goods and started getting into debt at company stores, pretty soon you had a restoration of something similar to slavery, from the plantation owners' point of view. — Noam Chomsky

One of the most critical strengths of a superior competitor in any discipline - whether we are speaking about sports, business negotiations, or even presidential debates - is the ability to dictate the tone of the battle. — Josh Waitzkin

I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating it. Maybe we did, but I don't remember. — George W. Bush

The question is whether we're ready to undertake responsibility for overcoming the crisis or will again sink in debates, mutual recriminations and half-steps — Yevgeny Primakov

I don't think it should be a surprise when we're talking about energy and trying to have more home-grown energy, be less reliant on foreign oil when you look at our health care that we're trying to get more affordable health care, that these are going to create major debates in this country and be somewhat polarizing. — Amy Klobuchar

If Allah wants for a people ill, he gives them debates and takes away from them actions. — Umar

The debate that has been conducted in terms of "creation versus evolution" has gotten caught up with all kinds of other debates, and this has provided a singularly unhelpful backdrop to the would-be serious discussion of other parts of the Bible. — N. T. Wright

No more debates disturbed his mind. He knew all the arguments of despair and would not listen to them. His will was set, and only death would break it. — J.R.R. Tolkien

You know a person is teaching the truth when no one debates it." ~ Amunhotep El Bey — Amunhotep El Bey

Unfortunately, public debates do not have much room for subtlety. The audience wants a quick thrust at your opponent, not a slow and convoluted series of moves. Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed. — Alan Lightman

My grandmother was also an active member of the tenants association and a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, and both of my parents were extremely liberal, so I think I grew up in a household that was very politically conscious - we all watched the elections on TV, and we watched the debates. So it was an awareness that we were raised with, and as we grew into young adults, we just naturally became politically active. It was just understood that it was important, that it was our responsibility. — Scarlett Johansson

We encounter very healthy boardroom debates and pretty diverse views, so we have always had the benefit of diversity of opinion and expression before we take some important calls. — Uday Kotak

The agitation for a Scottish militia failed to move legislators in London. But it did set a new standard for later debates about the future of free societies, and the place of military virtues and military arms in them. The idea that a free people needed to keep and bear arms in order to defend their liberty was an ancient one, reaching back to the Greeks and forward to Andrew Fletcher. But now Ferguson and his friends had added something new, a social-psychological dimension. By owning weapons and learning to use them, a commercial people can keep alive a collective sense of honor, valor, and physical courage, traditions that no society, no matter how sophisticated and advanced, can afford to do without. — Arthur Herman

For the individual, as I can testify, a brief grounding in semantics, besides making philosophy unreadable, makes unreadable most political speeches, classical economic theory, after-dinner oratory, diplomatic notes, newspaper editorials, treatises on pedagogics and education, expert financial comment, dissertations on money and credit, accounts of debates, and Great Thoughts from Great Thinkers in general. You would be surprised at the amount of time this saves. — Stuart Chase

When you are young in this world, you believe that the class of deductive truths about social matters is larger than it turns out to be. [ ... ] I have discovered, to my infinite regret, that most of the serious debates over the basic principles of any political order have an irreducible empirical content. — Richard Allen Epstein

Debates educated a nation. That educative function had atrophied during decades of making decisions behind closed doors. — Robert A. Caro