Argumentative Strategies Quotes

One thing I learned about Gordon Brown is you've got to have the strength to just get in there and take him on. When you first hear him spouting his statistics and boasting about his record, it can be quite intimidating. But over time, shadowing him, I just realised that a lot of it was rubbish; a lot of it was baloney.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Speaking is the one trait in which woman is superior to man. Consider what happens when a couple argues. The man tries to talk to the woman. The stupid fool - he can never win.

When I'm on TV, I'm often talking to a conservative host. I may have another conservative arguing with me. You've got very limited time, and you're using 'sound-bite' type language.

Very often in political debate questions of fact turn into questions of motive.

...associational ad hominem attacks remain the left's favorite rhetorical strategy for undermining opponents.

The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing.

I do try very hard to develop themes that are easily understood and that, hopefully, will paint vivid images of the legal principles and implications of the ruling that will stick in the Justices' heads and will help influence how they think about the case.

Of means of persuading by speaking there are three species: some consist in the character of the speaker; others in the disposing the hearer a certain way; others in the thing itself which is said, by reason of its proving, or appearing to prove the point.

Analogies, in particular, can illuminate, but they can also obscure and confuse. They need to be handled carefully, like rhetorical high explosives.

Similes prove nothing, but yet greatly lighten and relieve the tedium of argument.

Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight

we have not been impressed with any attribute of the Senate other than its appearance and manners. We have heard the best speakers: they all fire off speeches which deal with the entire subject in general terms and which do not attempt to debate, to answer opponents' arguments or offer new points for discussion. And the speeches are constantly degenerating into empty rhetoric; they abound in quotations from well-known authors or from their own former speeches.

I don't enjoy sparring with the audience. It devastates me.

Sustentative ideas are more important than applause lines. Substance makes speeches.

If you and I believe two different things, I can attack you verbally all day, but if I can make you laugh and show you the absurdity of your argument, it will lower you guard. People let you in then.

While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you.