489 Quotes About Debate

Make way for the sweetest humiliation when you underestimate their intelligence while overestimating your knowledge.

While having one’s assertions challenged might be bad for an unintelligent man’s ego; it sure is good for his intellect.

The usual duty of the “intellectual” is to argue for complexity and to insist that phenomena in the world of ideas should not be sloganized or reduced to easily repeated formulae.

Never forget, an argument isn’t wrong by line 1,000. It is wrong by the end of line 1. It is wrong in the first, defining claim it makes.

Thinking that someone is wrong is a very common way of being wrong.

The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, becomes a staple, there is no wisdom in it.

Don't fight to be right, but fight when you are right.

A good way to judge a debate is to note who personally insulted someone first, insults are usually required when pleasing answers do not exist.

It kept man [. . .] in such a constant dither of debate and "can't-do want to" frustration as to make him finally just a spotted, soggy mass of compromises and self-invented shames.