Desmond Tutu Quotes

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

No matter what stage of life you are graduating from or entering, learning how to build and state your case is something every person in the world should know how to do.

Use your logick, and then your rhetorick. Rhetorick without logick, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet I confess more are taken with rhetorick than logick, because they are catched with a free expression, when they understand not reason. Logick must be natural, or it is worth nothing at all: Your rhetorick figures may be learned.

I wouldn't want to debate me every day.

By the rules of debate, if you lose your cool, you've lost the game.

I preferred the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosophy, and armed with these, I chose the conflicts of disputation rather than the trophies of war.

Convincing yourself doesn't win an argument.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

I'm a better polemicist in prose.

Arguments, like children, should be like the subject that begets them.

I was born to argue... I don't know why. I mean, from arguing with my teachers and, on occasions, my parents. I think I've mastered the art of argument at a fairly young age.

Soft words and hard arguments.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

Leaders don't change their positions mid-debate. They welcome scorn from the masses because it creates the opportunity for dialogue.

It may sound like showing off, but I am good in communications and in creating harmony.

I was on the debate team.

Classroom discussion is where you learn how to debate an idea and stick with an opinion, even when others don't agree - and not take it personally, either.

Learning how to be persuasive has been really crucial to my life both professionally and personally.

A lot of people ask me, did debating help me as a writer, and I honestly don't know.

I consider myself to be quite persuasive when I want.

Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

The legal profession, politics and acting are very closely tied: the whole point is to have an idea and get it across to a listener, whether it is one person or five thousand in a hall.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.