Quotes about Debate

If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.

through lowered educational standards, declining intellectual competence, diminished zest for substantive debate, and social sanctions against skepticism, our liberties can be slowly eroded and our rights subverted.

Trends working at least marginally towards the implantation of a very narrow range of attitudes, memories, and opinions include control of major television networks and newspapers by a small number of similarly motivated powerful corporation and individuals, the disappearance of competitive daily newspapers in many cities, the replacement of substantive debate by sleaze in political campaigns, and episodic erosion of the principal of the separation of powers.

Presumably no one would argue that the conservative view on the sum of 14 and 27 differs from the liberal view

The person who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that.

Our young people - and adults - should be aware that considerable dissent exists in the scientific world regarding the validity of molecules-to-man evolution.

Most students are presented only with the evolutionary belief system in their schools, and they are censored from hearing challenges to it. Let our young people understand science correctly and hear both sides of the origins issue and then evaluate them.

During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.

My voice is still for war.Gods! can a Roman senate long debateWhich of the two to choose, slavery or death?

Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.

Their remarks and responses were like a Ping-Pong game with each volley clearing the net and flying back to the opposition. The sense of what they were saying became lost, and only the exercise remained. The exchange was conducted with the certainty of a measured hoedown and had the jerkiness of Monday's wash snapping in the wind—now cracking east, then west, with only the intent to whip the dampness out of the cloth.