Debate Quotes

What we have to do... is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities.

Debate is the death of conversation.

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Well, first of all, no professor should be able to say, I refuse to defend my position. I refuse to debate my position.

Open debate and full discourse on the topic of torture is a double-edged sword.

I take the debate on the method of promoting democracy seriously.

We've become more tolerant because we're tired of the debate.

There is an ongoing debate about the reform of the U.N. system.

A presidential debate is a job interview. And voters look for certain traits in people applying to be president.

Anything can go wrong in a debate, and Obama is not a perfect debater.

The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.

I'm a talker. I love a good debate.

It's easy to get distracted by the vaudevillian aspects of the healthcare debate.

You can only have one aim per debate.

I can assure you we are all strong-willed, forceful personalities and the president encourages vigorous debate.

I am convinced that we as a body must conduct a formal and legitimate debate about election irregularities.

There ought to be a thoughtful welfare-reform debate that doesn't turn into something that could be called scapegoating.

I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me.

Debate is healthy and no one in this chamber - starting with me - has a monopoly on being right.

I don't debate with liars.

I like movies that leave you with something to think about, to discuss, to debate, you know?

I would never want to take TOMS or myself into an issues debate. That's not what we're about. We're about helping people.

I think of fans like a barbershop. I want that debate.

The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.

Any debate among politicians about monetary policy is counterproductive.

But, also, before I even go on the Medicare prescription drug debate, I always tell the folks in rural Illinois, and I represent 30 counties south of Springfield down to Indiana and Kentucky, that in this bill is the best rural package for hospitals ever passed.

Nothing ever gets settled in this town. a seething debating society in which the debate never stops, in which people never give up, including me. And so that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

I've never backed down from a fight and I relish a good debate.