Rational Debate Quotes

I'm a big believer in,'If anyone can understand my politics, I've failed.' If you can get a sense of which side of the fence I'm on, then I'm not doing a service. I'm preaching, and that's not my job.

Ideas can never be defeated by military force. They can only be defeated by better ideas.

Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them...

Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.

How is it possible for someone who believes that the world was created in six days to have a rational conversation with me, who doesn't believe that, about other possibilities?

I think we should be very clear on this. You know, this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can't lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

I know a moderate, more centered candidate like myself doesn't get as much attention as people who tend to say more extreme things.

The long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

It's important to be the gatekeeper against dangerous ideas.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable.

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward truth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.

So I think it's important to communicate with the people in terms of what the real facts are on these proposals and try to have a discussion and a dialogue that gives people information. I think they're hungry for that rather than just political rhetoric.

We won't dispassionately investigate or rationally debate which drugs do what damage and whether or how much of that damage is the result of criminalization. We'd rather work ourselves into a screaming fit of puritanism and then go home and take a pill.

Since when was an emotional argument won by logic?

There is nothing wrong with intellectual differences flowing from freedom of thought as long as such differences remain confined to intellectual debates.

However good an argument in philosophy may happen to be, it is generally not good enough.

Larry King's show got to be an increasingly lonely outpost of humane civility in a mephitic menagerie of hotheads, saber rattlers, cretins and crackpots.

When an arguer argues dispassionately he thinks only of the argument.

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

I don't mind anybody coming after me as long as they're coming with facts.

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

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.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.