Byron Dorgan Quotes

If you agree with everything I have said, then I have failed.

And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.

Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

I love disagreements. I love the democratic process. If I'm in a room where everybody agrees, I start to nod off.

I encourage people to find and use the power of their voices just as much when I do not agree with those voices as when I do agree with them.

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

You don't want a whole bunch of yes people around you.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

Never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect

I think most people like a bit of freedom and hearing things that they might not agree with, rather than just having everybody shutting their mouths.

You don't have to think exactly like me. When people go, "I don't agree with everything you say," you know what, if you agree with everything anyone says, you're an idiot.

You can't have 'yes' people around you.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

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.

Some of the speakers we bring on campus may not reflect official church teaching, but that's how it is.

I want someone who can respectfully challenge me. I know what I believe, so there's no point in my taking on a relationship with someone who thinks like me or laughs at what I laugh at. I enjoy being with someone who can offer me the opposite.

One of the most important things one can do in life is to brutally question every single thing you are taught.

We will not put a lid on opinions. On the contrary, it is more important than ever that political debates are open and free, even on the most difficult issues. Especially on the most difficult issues. The task is to encourage controversial debates in a form that strengthens democracy.

If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech.

Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture.

I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, 'I better reexamine my position!' I probably believe that the worst opinions in my court have been unanimous. Because there's nobody on the other side pointing out all the flaws.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.