Quotes & Sayings About Not Debating

Forget the Syria debate; we need a debate on why we are always debating on whether to bomb someone. Because we're starting to look not so much like the world's police men but more like George Zimmerman. Itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice. — Bill Maher

Harriet Thomas, a leader of the Women's Peace Party, startled the committee [debating the Espionage Act] when she told them, 'It seems to me that under this act I would be liable to imprisonment for life, or a more drastic penalty, perhaps, if I should say that I would rather my sons be shot for refusing to go out and kill and bear arms against a supposed enemy of this country.' A congressman interrupted her to ask, 'Then you do not honor your citizenship in this country?' Thomas stood her ground. 'I feel I have the right to interpret my loyalty to my own country in my own terms of citizenship, and according to my own conscience, and I do not need any bill to tell me what my of country shall represent. — Ernest Freeberg

The withdrawal that Congress is debating now will only effect whether we leave somewhat gracefully or in complete panic and humiliation. Sistani has already made the decision. The Sunnis will not be coming back into the Iraqi government. The die is cast. The civil war will continue. George W. Bush will leave office a complete embarrassment. And he still won't know what happened to him. — Cenk Uygur

Jon Spiro had not hired Pex and Chips for their debating sills. In the job interview, they had only been set one task. A hundred applicants were handed a walnut and asked to smash it however they could. Only two succeeded. Pex had shouted at the walnut for a few minutes, then flattened it between his giant palms. Chips had opted for a more controversial method. He placed the walnut on the table, grabbed is interviewer by the ponytail, and used the man's forehead to smash the nut. Both men were hired on the spot. They quickly established themselves as Arno Blunt's most reliable leiutenants for in-house work. They were not allowed outside Chicago, as this could involve map reading, something Pex and Chips were not very good at. — Eoin Colfer

The network and local TV angle of broadcast television has received a black eye for not properly debating within the news issues that should be debated, instead of shuffling them of to television advertising. — Mark E. Hyman

In the summer of 2007, I was sitting in a studio in Dublin, debating with a lay spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church who turned out to be the only believing Christian on a discussion panel of five people. He was a perfectly nice and rather modest logic-chopping polemicist, happy enough to go for a glass of refreshment after the program, and I suddenly felt a piercing stab of pity for him. A generation ago in Ireland, the Church did not have to lower itself in this way. It raised its voice only slightly, and was instantly obeyed by the Parliament, the schools, and the media. It could and did forbid divorce, contraception, the publication of certain books, and the utterance of certain opinions. Now it is discredited and in decline. Its once-absolute doctrines appear ridiculous: — Christopher Hitchens

In a world where we are accustomed to rivalries over possession, authority, and borders, and people clashing over the issue, "Ours," or "Mine, not yours," it is rather strange to find two people debating whose the kingdom is not, and asserting: "Yours, not mine. — R.K. Narayan

Hmm?" She raised her eyebrows and looked up at him, then her cheerful expression faded. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" he asked, though he knew damned well what she meant.
"Like ye think I'd be willing to have my wedding night lying in the dirt," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "If ye believe that, you're quite mistaken."
"So we're only debating where, and not whether, to have a wedding night?" he asked. — Margaret Mallory

Daemon," a voice whispered from the shadows of my front porch. "What in the world are you doing out here?" Debating on whether or not burning down a house next time they head to the store is a reasonable response to getting new neighbors? Yeah, I was gonna keep that one to myself. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

We shouldn't be debating whether to deal with the current code by allowing it to be extended or not. We should have a president who shows leadership and comes to Congress and says: 'You know what? We need to reform this whole tax code.' — Rob Portman

Leading is not hypothetical debating; it's about solving real problems. — John Yarmuth

If you find yourself debating whether or not you should go exercise, it means you have the time and the means, your're simply talking yourself out of doing something difficults — The Oatmeal

This is an issue that women are not interested in debating. — Rona Ambrose

Debating clubs among boys are very useful, not only as affording pleasant meetings and interesting discussions, but also as serving for training grounds for developing the knowledge and the qualities that are needed in public life. — Annie Besant

Skepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get. — Thomas Carlyle

It will be full dark soon, and I do not like the look of that sky. The temperature is falling as well," he added, rubbing his hands together briskly. "I think we shall be in for a bit of snow from the look of the cloud just over the Downs." Naturally the gentlemen had to spend another quarter of an hour debating the weather as the ladies stood shivering, Portia rolling her eyes at me behind Father's back. In the end they all agreed that, yes, it was indeed growing colder and darker and we ought to depart at once for the Abbey. — Deanna Raybourn

If the ancient churches, in debating and deciding the greatest mysteries of religion, knew nothing of these two texts, I understand not why we should be so fond of them now the debate is over. — Isaac Newton

I was debating what I might have in my deep glassy lake to use - Barrons had slurped down my crimson runes like truffles - when Ryodan called down, "Let her up."
I tipped my head back. The urbane owner of the largest den of sex, drugs, and exotic thrills in the city stood behind the chrome balustrade, big hands closed on the chrome railing, thick wrists cuffed by silver, features darkened by a convenient shadow. He looked like a scarred Gucci model. Whatever kind of life these men had lived before they'd become whatever they were, it had been violent and hard. Like them.
"Why?" Lor demanded.
"I said so."
"Not time for the meeting yet."
"She wants to see her parents. She's going to insist."
"So?"
"She thinks she has something to prove. She's feeling pushy."
"Gee, this is nice. I don't even have to talk," I purred. — Karen Marie Moning

When a DL man is out having sex with men, he's not debating whether or not he's gay or bisexual. He has only one thing on his mind: Let me do this and get home to my woman before she wakes up, gets off work, comes home, or starts missing me. — J.L. King

Ethics that focus on human interactions, morals that focus on humanity's relationship to a Creator, fall short of these things we've learned. They fail to encompass the big take-home message, so far, of a century and a half of biology and ecology: life is- more than anything else- a process; it creates, and depends on, relationships among energy, land, water, air, time and various living things. It's not just about human-to-human interaction; it's not just about spiritual interaction. It's about all interaction. We're bound with the rest of life in a network, a network including not just all living things but the energy and nonliving matter that flows through the living, making and keeping all of us alive as we make it alive. We can keep debating ideologies and sending entreaties toward heaven. But unless we embrace the fuller reality we're in- and reality's implications- we'll face big problems. — Carl Safina

Where's my life gone? Where's it going? Looking across the grassy marshland to Flint and up the coast to Point Of Air, I start to wonder what all those poor fuckers in Wales are doing with their lives. Screwing? Sleeping in? Debating whether to take breakfast in bed to their broken fathers? Unlikely. They're probably doing what the gilded folk of Hollywood are doing, or Kowloon or Port Elizabeth. Worrying. Worrying about getting old, or about work, or about money, or about their boyfriend, mistress, lover, house, health, future. Life is shit. There is no fucking point to any of it. Not now that we've evolved past the survival stage. Maybe we used to live to hunt to kill to eat to live another day. Now we just kill time in as many sophisticated ways as possible. Pointless jobs. Pointless lives. Work. Television. Football. — Kevin Sampson

The human mind is not, as philosophers would have you think, a debating hall, but a picture gallery. — Douglas Harding

One night, bored and restless, I found a stack of dusty board games in a closet, and bullied Ash into learning Scrabble, checkers and Yahtzee. Surprisingly, Ash found that he enjoyed these "human" games, and was soon asking me to play more often than not. This filled some of the long, restless evenings and kept my mind off certain things. Unfortunately for me, once Ash learned the rules, he was nearly impossible to beat in strategy games like checkers, and his long life gave him a vast knowledge of lengthy, complicated words he staggered me with in Scrabble. Though sometimes we'd end up debating whether or not faery terms like Gwragedd Annwn and hobyahs were legal to use. — Julie Kagawa

So in the world of Enlightenment, things are just things, except they're not things. We're in nirvana. There is no debating team. — Frederick Lenz

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers-it may not take long. — William Hague

She was through the doors before I recognized her, which was pardonable, for Holly and libraries were not an easy association to make. I let curiosity guide me between the lions, debating on the way whether I should admit following her or pretend coincidence. — Truman Capote

The number of children is not growing any longer in the world. We are still debating peak oil, but we have definitely reached peak child. — Hans Rosling

I knew there was no point in debating a man such as this. The world bent and contorted itself to fit his understanding, not the other way around. I could not make him see reason, could not make him regret his actions. It would be a mistake to try. — David Liss

Close to half my students in one class in northern Nigeria, where head coverings are part of the culture, held this view, so after they had finished debating with the other half, I asked why none of them had greeted me with a holy kiss - and they laughed! The holy kiss is an explicit command repeated in Scripture five times as often as head coverings (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14), but the usual response is, "That was merely a cultural form of greeting." Indeed it was, but covering the head (technically, all the hair) was also merely a cultural expression of sexual modesty, as can be demonstrated from a massive number of ancient sources.26Yet a few of my students bordered on calling other students "liberal" because they did not insist on head coverings as a transcultural requirement! Who determines where to draw the line? Is everyone liberal who holds as cultural something we hold as transcultural? — James R. Beck

The concept of "microaggression" is just one of many tactics used to stifle differences of opinion by declaring some opinions to be "hate speech," instead of debating those differences in a marketplace of ideas. To accuse people of aggression for not marching in lockstep with political correctness is to set the stage for justifying real aggression against them. — Thomas Sowell

It's not about some principled debate as to whether I should focus on what I have, or on what I don't have. Rather, it's about being thankful that I have the privilege to enjoy the former, and the opportunity to contemplate the latter. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Moral questions may not have objective answers-whether revealed by God or by science-but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need. That rationality can only be discovered through exercising the human potential for rational dialogue, the potential for thinking about the world, and for discussing, debating and persuading others. Values can never be entirely wrenched apart from facts; but neither can they be collapsed into facts. It is the existence of humans as moral agents that allows us to act as the bridge between facts and values. — Kenan Malik

If it gets to a situation where it turns into a debate, look, the person that I'm debating is the person that is writing the story or presenting the broadcast. They're not going to write the story in such a way that shows they lost. — Josh Earnest

We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge. — John McCain

Cursing my heels and debating whether it was faster to stop and take them off
damn ankle straps!
or keep running with the potential neck breakers. Wouldn't that make a charming epitaph? Here lies Cat. Killed not by fang, but Ferragamos. — Jeaniene Frost

I do have a core theology though. It's quite simple: God is love and He is always good. It's my position on everything. And I'm not much into debating it. I'd rather show than tell. — Jason Clark

A kiss, for instance, is not to be minimized, or its value judged by anyone else. I wonder do these men grade their pleasure in terms of whether their actions produce a child or not, and do they consider them more pleasant if they do. It is a question of pleasure after all, and what's the use of debating the pleasure of an ice cream cone versus a football game - or a Beethoven quartet versus the Mona Lisa. I'll leave that to the philosophers. — Patricia Highsmith

Try to be brief, will you, Tru?" Tse-Mallory asked his companion. "If there is one among us who is guilty of persistent loquacity," came the reply smoothly, "it is not I." "Debatable" was Tse-Mallory's simple retort, as he followed September up the steps leading out of the temple. "Not without being guilty of the crime of debating!" shouted Truzenzuzex, — Alan Dean Foster

What Mr. Albee most desires is for the Model UN, the entire group of them, all eleven, even the scoundrel Quinn, to be there waiting, when he gets home each dreary night, and there again when he awakes in the morning, all of them politely debating one another with their resplendent voices, their hearts - which have not yet been broken by anything more serious than an unrequited crush or an unfair grade - quietly aglow with everything. — Joe Meno

They lie in bed and recount everything they've experienced over the course of the past forty-eight hours. Debating the meaning of it all, if there is one. They try to determine whether this series of events is just a result of temporary bad fortune - an anomaly - or whether it's a sign of a truly bad thing coming, something catastrophic. As is often the case, they find themselves arguing opposite sides: he says it's going to be okay, and she says it's not, that nothing will ever be the same again. They defend their positions for a while and then they switch. — Jonathan R. Miller

This wasn't instinct," the man - Adam - countered. "This was guilt, Ivy." "I'm not debating this with you." "Evidence would suggest you are. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Apparently you have ample proof from experience that you're not going to stop world evil by debating your in-laws into submission, so it's okay to choose not to try. — Carolyn Hax

Our political parties exist for no other reason than to win power; they are not ideological debating societies designed to present a particular political philosophy and to persuade voters to accept it. — Tom Wicker

When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would've had a chance. Because that's where my real heart was. — Steve Martin

We don't always agree on stuff, but when it's time to blow the whistle and start the game, we're not still debating. — Rick Wagoner

In debating the respective merits of dogs and cats, not having to walk a cat when it's 20 below zero deserves consideration. — Doug Larson

I come from a documentary background and my natural tendency, as a filmmaker, is to make a movie, if I have something to talk about. If it's not about anything that matters, I don't feel like doing it. I'm not against people who make movies just for fun, but I'm not one of those guys. I just want to provoke thinking and debating about certain issues. — Jose Padilha

My memories are of my dad taking me to football on Saturday mornings, and my mum taking me swimming. Those are the things I remember from my childhood, not sitting around the table debating capitalism and the profit squeeze. — David Miliband

We learn not for life but for the debating-room. — Seneca The Younger

No wonder the left seeks to avoid political debate at all costs. Why bother? Members of the left are not interested in having a debate about policy. They are not interested in debating what is right or wrong for the country. They are interested in debating you personally. They are interested in castigating you as a nasty human being because you happen to disagree. This is what makes leftists leftists: an unearned sense of moral superiority over you. And if they can instill that sense of moral superiority in others by making you the bad guy, they will. — Ben Shapiro

A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. — Thomas Carlyle

Debating is not an honest intellectual exercise. It's like a trial in which the goal is not to get to the truth but to win. — Victor J. Stenger

At moments of important decision-making, the mind could be considered as a parliament, a debating chamber. Different factions contended, short- and long-term interests were entrenched in mutual loathing. Not only were motions tabled and opposed, certain proposals were aired in order to mask others. Sessions could be devious as well as stormy. — Ian McEwan

On the The AIDS Epidemic: This is a war. It has killed more people than has been the case in all previous wars and in all previous natural disasters ... We must not continue to be debating, to be arguing, when people are dying. — Nelson Mandela

All the tattoos I would get if I were the sort of person who had the nerve to get tattoos, which I am decidedly not. Instead, I'm the kind of person who has spent hours debating said theoretical tattoos, despite my crippling fears of both needles and long-term commitment. — Julie Buxbaum

... but every activity we pursue comes with an opportunity cost, as the economists remind us. Time spent commuting to work is time not spent with your kids. Time spent debating the relative merits of kale versus arugula is time not spent discussing the nature of beauty and truth. I look down at my plate of bland grub with newfound respect. — Eric Weiner

I'm not good at debating - I'm much better at pontificating. — Laura Schlessinger

The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their merits — Winston S. Churchill

and I had spent a few days debating whether or not Michael was actually gay or just English. With the advent of metrosexuals and Europeans running around Manhattan, one never knows. — Polly Courtney

What you create when you're teaching fiction writing is a kind of literary salon, not a social club or a mutual admiration society, not a debating society, not a repair shop, not a fight club or a soap box. It's a place to have a conversation about a story. — John Dufresne

Maybe It's not the biggest blockbuster film, but there will be some people that will see it, that will be debating it, that will be questioning their own sense of spirituality. If the film resonates, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do. — Eriq La Salle

I worked in a grocery store my whole life, Honey-girl. I know what lonely housewives think of this."
"I meant the baby, Jerk."
"Attached to me."
"You think you're cute, don't you?"
"Are you honestly asking me this? I know you're not debating it. — Pella Grace

The next time you are contemplating a decision in which you are debating whether or not to go for the gusto, ask yourself this important question: "How long am I going to be dead?" With that perspective, you can now make a free, fearless choice to do just about any goddamned sneaky thing your devious little mind can think up. Go ahead. Have your fun. You're welcome. Go on. See you in hell. — Matt Groening

Social Security should be phased out and ended altogether ... Social Security in any form is morally irredeemable. We should be debating, not how to save Social Security, but how to end it - how to phase it out so as to best protect both the rights of those who have paid into it, and those who are forced to pay for it today. This will be a painful task. But it will make possible a world in which Americans enjoy far greater freedom to secure their own futures. — Alex Epstein

I've spent a life-time attacking religious beliefs and have not wavered from a view of the universe that many would regard as bleak. Namely, that it is a meaningless place devoid of deity.
However I'm unwilling simply to repeat the old arguments of the past when, in fact, God is a moving target and is taking all sorts of new shapes and forms. The arguments used against the long bow are not particularly useful when debating nuclear weapons, and the simple arguments against the old model gods are not sufficient when dealing with the likes of Davies et al.
For example, the notion that God didn't exist, doesn't exist but may come into existence through the spread of consciousness throughout the universe is too clever to be pooh-poohed along Bertrand Russell lines. And if I had the time I could give you half a dozen other scientific theologies that will need snappier footwork from the atheist of the future. — Phillip Adams

We should not be making near-term decisions with long-term consequences without robustly debating these questions and fully considering the substantial and unpredictable risks of these actions. — Niki Tsongas

A Labour party is not a debating club, it is a party of action. — Karl Radek

Brody's not gay. But then he kisses a boy. So he might be gay? No, Brody's not gay. But he loves this boy. So after much delaying, debating, and waiting, the answer comes clear ... nothing is ever perfectly straight. It's slash. — Dart Gray

Debating, doubting, or rejecting the basic scientific facts about climate change in the face of the overwhelming evidence and overwhelming scientific opinion will not change those facts. — Bernie Sanders

Debating whether one trusts or not is a sign that one does not want to trust at all, and therefore is still incapable of it. — Idries Shah

When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own. — Colin Powell

We prosecuted two of the biggest terrorism cases in the world and stopped Fort Dix from being attacked by six American radicalized Muslims from a Mosque in New Jersey because we worked with the Muslim American community to get intelligence and we used the Patriot Act to get other intelligence to make sure we did those cases. This is the difference between actually been a federal prosecutor, actually doing something, and not just spending your life as one of hundred debating it. — Chris Christie

Beating up on public schools is not just our nation's favorite blood sport, but also a favorite conversational entertainment of the well-off - like debating the most recent toothsome plot twists of 'Big Love' - who, of course, have no dog in the fight. — Sandra Tsing Loh

There are major challenges, when it comes to making a film in the Arctic. When you're filming wildlife and that wildlife doesn't necessarily take direction, you can spend a lot of time waiting, where you're debating whether or not you should press the record button because it costs a lot of money. — Greg MacGillivray