Fiona Bruce Quotes

Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives.

Civility is not not saying negative or harsh things. It is not the absence of critical analysis. It is the manner in which we are sharing this territorial freedom of political discussion. If our discourse is yelled and screamed and interrupted and patronized, that's uncivil.

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.

We may disagree on some things, but we can do so without being disagreeable.

Our civilization is becoming less civil. You don’t have the right to demonize somebody just because they disagree with you.

Happy the generation where the great listen to the small, for it follows that in such a generation the small will listen to the great.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another

The best thing we can do when we want to elevate civil dialogue in our American political discourse is to do whatever we can to make sure we treat others kindly with dignity and respect, and that's what I intend to do.

I think that we all got to have respect for each other. And we could all be more careful with the things we say.

I do think people of good will can have different opinions but still be coming not from a place of malice.

You should be able to voice your opinion and respect the voice of the other side. You should be willing to educate yourself and know what it is you're dealing with.

I know it sounds cliched, but if we just treated each other as we'd like to be treated ourselves, we'd all be doing a lot better.

I think that everybody wants to be heard, and the easiest way to be the loudest is to be the hater.

Maybe Larry Kings cannot thrive or even survive in a world where the norms for discourse are rage, vehemence and character assassination. King wanted to be liked, not feared; admired, not loathed.

Let us not become so intense in our zeal to do good by winning arguments or by our pure intention in disputing doctrine that we go beyond good sense and manners, thereby promoting contention, or say and do imprudent things, invoke cynicism, or ridicule with flippancy.

I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse.

You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.

One of the lines from my books is about having respect for different minds, and if I had to have an epitaph at this point in my life, that would be it.

There will always be someone else with a different view than you. I appreciate them and would never say that they are wrong. I hope that they would give me that courtesy also.

The crucial part of a citizens' culture is learning to correct others without mistreating them or generating aggression. We need to create a society in which civility rules over cynicism and apathy.

You treat everyone with respect even though you don’t know them and even though you do not agree with them.

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.

Try and understand--there are views other than yours.

I get very very concerned when I hear people start characterizing their opponents as stupid. I still understand that because politics is a little rough and tumble at times, but I don’t buy it and when they start calling each other either crazy or evil. You and I, we don’t compromise with crazy people or evil people. And so, I don’t think that’s helpful. Generally speaking, just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them crazy or evil.

We need to respect free speech, but we need to respect one another's rights to free speech, too.