Semiotics

"And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument."

"The first the Retort Courteous; the second the Quip Modest; the third the Reply Churlish; the fourth the Reproof Valiant; the fifth the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh the Lie Direct."

"Arguments don't break chains."

"Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past, We find our tenets just the same at last."

"The very nature of deliberation and argumentation is opposed to necessity and self-evidence, since no one deliberates where the solution is necessary or argues argues against what is self-evident."

"Abba Paul the Barber and his brother Timothy lived in Scetis. They often used to argue. So Abba Paul said, 'How long shall we go on like this?' Abba Timothy said to him, 'I suggest you take my side of the argument and in my turn I will take your side when you oppose me.' They spent the rest of their days in this practice."

"It's hard to engage in good faith with a bad faith argument without just haemorrhaging energy."

"In argument with men a woman ever Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause."

"The brilliant chief, irregularly great, Frank, haughty, rash—the Rupert of debate."

"I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

"Argument is unnecessary for an enlightened disciple. ... Argument implies a desire to win, strengthens egotism, and ties us to the belief in the idea of a self."

"Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes Error a fault, and truth discourtesy."

"I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me."

"In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, For even though vanquished he could argue still."

"His conduct still right with his argument wrong."

"Reproachful speech from either side The want of argument supplied; They rail, reviled; as often ends The contests of disputing friends."

"A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow."

"While the Hindu elaborates his argument, the Moslem sharpens his sword."

"He whose will and desire in conversation is to establish his own opinion, even though what he says is true, should recognize that he is sick with the devil's disease."

"The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it."

"When Bishop Berkeley said, "there was no matter," And proved it—'twas no matter what he said."

"'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch."

"I've heard old cunning stagers Say, fools for arguments use wagers."

"Whatever Sceptic could inquire for, For every why he had a wherefore."

"And there began a lang digression About the lords o' the creation."

""Or he might say: 'Whereas some recluses and brahmins, while living on the food offered by the faithful, engage in wrangling argumentation, (saying to one another): "You don't understand this doctrine and discipline. I am the one who understands this doctrine and discipline." — "How can you understand this doctrine and discipline?" — "You're practising the wrong way. I'm practising the right way." — "I'm being consistent. You're inconsistent." — "What should have been said first you said last, what should have been said last you said first." — "What you took so long to think out has been confuted." — "Your doctrine has been refuted. You're defeated. Go, try to save your doctrine, or disentangle yourself now if you can" — the recluse Gotama abstains from such wrangling argumentation.'"

"Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own."

"To get to know a truth properly, one must polemicize it."

"The light of conscience ... enters the eyes of the soul, as the light of the sun enters the eyes of the body; and to open the former requires no greater effort than to open the latter."

"Trudeau: Well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier— CBC reporter Tim Ralfe [interrupting]: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that? Trudeau: Well, just watch me. … Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power."

"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward."

"The heretic may be very irritating, he may be decidedly wrong, but the attempt to choke heresy or dissent from the dominant opinion by coercing the conscience is an incalculable danger to society. If war makes it necessary, it is the last count in the indictment against war."

"The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising."

"In a society where dissenting viewpoints are suppressed, those viewpoints are potent and dangerous... Where dissent is tolerated, it rapidly becomes quaint and is viewed as un-sophisticated; people merely amuse themselves with the expression of contrary opinion."

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."

"A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society."

"The notion that truth is reached by the repression of dissent is the kind of claptrap that is believed—or at least implemented—by dictators and high school administrators."

"To be different is to be held in suspicion. The nonconformist is a subversive. Subversion and rebellion make societies become more generous, more diverse, more compassionate and an individual more free. For the inability or unwillingness to see rebellion as a virtue and not a flaw is what provokes the uncomprehending hostility that makes the anxious herd stifle dissent and stamp out anything different. But humanity is not a herd, and being human demands a vigilance against the kind of provocations that start stampedes."

"Chomsky reminds us that intellect and dissent go together, and that the vital challenge of our times is to maintain “an independent mind.” That’s not easy in an age of manufactured consent, but it is possible, as Chomsky so well reminds us — by continuing to speak, as consistently and as agilely as ever, about the lies of our times."

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

"There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree." We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President."

"We see political leaders replacing moral imperatives with a Southern strategy. We have seen all too clearly that there are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit. And it is up to us to prove that they are wrong."

"It's beyond me how anybody can look at these protestors and call them anything other than what they are: anti-American, anticapitalist, pro-Marxist communists."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

"Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may well be doubted."

"Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear."

"[Dissents are] appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day."

"A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority."