Daniel Lubetzky Quotes

The power of real debate is in the language and intellectual honesty of the debaters, alongside the engagement of spectators.

Well, to tell you truth, I have learned a long time ago that the trick when doing a debate, any kind of debate, is to just turn off the judgment switch in my head.

Sometimes I like to list the strongest arguments I can find to support a point of view I think is wrong. When I have them before me, I am up against a real opponent rather than a hypothetical one that is an easy target for me to hit.

Somewhere in this we got into impugning people's character and motives if we didn't like their ideas. We gotta get back to just debating ideas.

It is not the least service which a college or university may render to those under its instruction, to habituate them to looking not only patiently but methodically on both sides, before adopting any conclusion upon controverted issues.

I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.

I like reading things where someone's looked at what I do with some honesty, and maybe been challenged by it, and they have something to say that shows they've thought about it, even if they don't necessarily like it.

The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

I think it's interesting to me to talk to people who don't agree with me all the time.

I enjoy being around people who disagree with me; and I enjoy being in non-political contexts and activities.

You can tell if someone is about social intercourse or just about browbeating somebody with their opinion. It's no fun arguing with a closed-minded person.

We have to replace our focus on personalities with a focus on ideas so that the opinionated and self-serving pronouncements and forms of cyber-bullying are replaced by thoughtful dialogue and open-minded conversation.

When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that's fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

I decided to get to know my opponents and their arguments.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

Well, first of all, no professor should be able to say, I refuse to defend my position. I refuse to debate my position.

Critics reach that age when it is as valuable and daring to hold a negative opinion as it is for a positive. We learn and understand from both.

My mother cared more about how you reasoned than about the conclusions you reached.

I like critics with strong opinions.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

My mother always taught us that if people don't agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you've listened to them carefully and you still think that you're right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

I don't mind anybody coming after me as long as they're coming with facts.

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.

True respect means taking other people's beliefs seriously and assuming they are adult and intelligent enough to be able to cope with it if you tell them, clearly and civility, why you think they are totally, utterly and disastrously wrong.