Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.
-Robert Benchley
One argues because one is confused.
The man who knows does not argue;
the man who argues does not know.
-Lin Yutang
The man who knows does not argue;
the man who argues does not know.
-Lin Yutang
Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
-Jonathan Swift
People do not always argue
because they misunderstand one another;
they argue because they hold different goals.
-William H. Whyte
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain has tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
that stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fell off.
-Thomas Moore
Great contest follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both.
-William Cowper
Argument only increases argument.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home
but should not carry about with him.
-Samuel Butler
Contention is like fire,
for both burn as long as there is any exhaustible matter
to contend with.
-Thomas Adams
Two men in a burning house
must not stop to argue.
-African Proverb
The first duty of a wise advocate
is to convince his opponents
that he understands their arguments,
and sympathizes with their just feelings.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image -
some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball,
which they can see and handle and carry home with them -
and the cause is half won.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
You musn't exaggerate, young man.
That's always a sign that your argument is weak.
-Bertrand Russell
He who imposes his argument by bravado and command
shows that he is weak in reason.
-Michel de Montaigne
For gentle ways are best, and keep aloof
From sharp contentions.
-Homer
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
-Josh Billings
Argument seldom convinces anyone
contrary to his inclinations.
-Thomas Fuller
Abstain from argument:
you cannot truly convince anyone of anything.
Opinions are like nails:
the more you hammer them, the deeper they go.
-Juvenal
One can never come to the truth through argument,
when the whole urge behind the argument
is to establish one's case,
to assert one's viewpoint and make it prevail.
-Nilakantha Sri Ram
People's minds are changed through observation
and not through argument.
-Will Rogers
To prove yourself right
is just another way to prove someone else wrong.
-Anonymous
Never argue;
repeat your assertion.
-Robert Owen
Repetition is a convincing argument.
Shad Helmstetter
To strive with an equal is dangerous;
with a superior, mad;
with an inferior, degrading.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
When you argue with your inferiors,
you convince them of only one thing:
they are as clever as you.
-Irving Layton
Don't argue with an idiot;
people watching may not be able to tell the difference.
-Anonymous
people watching may not be able to tell the difference.
-Anonymous
Fear not those who argue
but those who dodge.
-Marie von Ebner Eschenbach
When two good people argue over principles,
they are both right.
--Marie von Ebner Eschenbach
There is no good arguing with the inevitable.
The only argument available with an east wind
is to put on your overcoat.
-James Lowell
Argue with anything else,
but don't argue with your own nature.
-Philip Pullman
Arguments are like eels:
however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp
unless fixed there by imagery and style.
Alain de Botton
It is no use arguing
and saying this is the truth;
you have to be the truth.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan