Fact-Based Discussion Quotes

I think you can be tough and aggressive with facts in a way that you cannot be tough and aggressive with emotional retorts. Most of the people that try to be tough on TV are really just being emotional and not factual.

Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.

I don't give advice. I can't tell anybody what to do. Instead I say this is what we know about this problem at this time. And here are the consequences of these actions.

I've had some pretty good arguments with people, but I've never regretted it. I've had people come up where it's all emotion and no fact. That's always sad.

Intelligent people tend to talk about the facts. They don't sit around and call each other names. That's what you can find on a third grade playground.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

If we're going to have debates, let's have real debates.

In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts, without a willingness to admit new information and concede that your opponent might be making a fair point, and that science and reason matter - then we're going to keep talking past each other, and we'll make common ground and compromise impossible.

The fact that there is a robust debate in Congress is good. The fact that the debate sometimes seems unanchored to facts is not so good.

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.

I'd like to talk to Sean Hannity in a controlled environment and say, 'O.K., you can't interrupt and jump up and down like a professional wrestler.'

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

The power of real debate is in the language and intellectual honesty of the debaters, alongside the engagement of spectators.

The Facebook way is that you sit at the table and you state your opinion, back it up with data, and make a recommendation.