Barney Frank Quotes

If you let things devolve into a shouting match, then it's really difficult to have a discussion, a serious discussion.

... The person who, at any stage of a conversation, disagrees, should at least hope to reach agreement in the end. He should be as much prepared to have his own mind changed as seek to change the mind of another ... No one who looks upon disagreement as an occasion for teaching another should forget that it is also an occasion for being taught.

Anger is one way to respond to fear. I say one way because responses are categorically multiple.

I have never believed you make your case stronger by bad-mouthing your opposition.

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.

I think that people have to reward those individuals who are prepared to work across the political aisle. I don't see any other way; if you don't talk to people with whom you disagree, you're never going to solve problems.

Avoid sarcasm. Don't insist on the last word.

The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on policy.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

We experience problem-solving sessions as war zones, we view competing ideas as enemies, and we use problems as weapons to blame and defeat opposition forces. No wonder we can't come up with real lasting solutions!

We can argue and we can disagree, but we don’t need to poke our fingers in each other’s eyes in order to get our points across.

The most difficult thing to do is to communicate the positive.

Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window.

People love to take sides, but it's not effective. It's not really an effective way of communicating something, because you're either already part of the side or you're going to feel attacked and get defensive.

If I had a row with my husband, it's not going to work my saying, 'Right, if you don't do what I want, I'm going to walk out.' It doesn't work on any level. What you do is you go in and you say, 'I have a problem. You have a problem. Let's try and sort this out together.' You don't come to an agreement with people who you're falling out with badly.

Additional problems are the offspring of poor decisions. When inquiry and advocacy are combined, the goal is no longer 'to win the argument', but to find the best argument.

By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.

I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.

We must understand that out of community and dialogue, the answers will arrive in their own time and way.

We can solve many problems in an appropriate way, without any difficulty, if we cultivate harmony, friendship and respect for one another.

The problem with requiring people to be loud and angry to get things done is that you're now surrounded by people who are loud and angry.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.

There are more than enough to fight and oppose; why waste good time fighting the people you like?