Unknown Quotes

If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.

You can talk about anything if you go about it the right way, which is never malicious.

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

A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.

Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.

Speak to men according to their mental capacities, for if you speak all things to all men, some cannot understand you and so fall into errors.

If you have ideology, you are less tolerant of the variant point of view.

What we say is an opinion it's the best that we can reach, if anybody can bring a better opinion we will accept it.

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.

As for my own views, they've of course evolved over the years. This conception of 'renouncing beliefs' is very odd, as if we're in some kind of religious cult. I 'renounce beliefs' practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. People have a lot of knowledge.

Listen with an open ear is the first, most important thing to do. From there, if people feel like learning more, that's when you can kind of go deeper.

If you talk, you only repeat something that you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something that you don't know.

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

Just because you are the boss doesn't mean you are the source of all knowledge.

I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.

Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.

Get the facts. Ask questions and listen intently to the answers before responding.

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held; instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

I respect the fact that Donald Trump always listens. It's how he was in business. It's how he is as president.