In a debate, participants discuss a subject from two opposed perspectives in an organized argument or contest of ideas.
The 'for' side is made up of people who agree with this assertion or notion. The 'against' side represents those who do not agree with this assertion or notion.
Each side presents their case for why they think they have the appropriate solutions in an orderly and intelligent manner. As they get closer to a conclusion, the debaters support their arguments with instances, words, and proof.
Best Quotes On Debate
A debate should answer every question on a topic in a healthy manner, and these healthy debate quotes will help you achieve so.
"The dinner table is a lively debate, and everybody weighs in a different way. I like that, though."
- Vanessa Kerry.
"Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?"
- Peter Hitchens.
"Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product."
- Christopher Lasch.
"Make your opponent the best partner you can. For the goal is not to win the debate, but for you both to better approximate the truth."
- Sabio Lantz.
"Calm, open debate, and logical thought drive strength to its maximum effectiveness."
- Billy Corgan.
"There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees."
- Michel de Montaigne.
"Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human."
- Bryce Courtenay.
"In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest."
- William Penn.
"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser."
- Socrates.
"It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper."
- Samuel Butler.
"Debate is so much better than denial."
- Julie Walters.
"I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide."
- Elena Kagan.
"You can only have one aim per debate."
- Christopher Hitchens.
"A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly between two candidates, and that's it."
- Jim Lehrer.
"I don’t debate with liars."
- Evo Morales.
"I think it’s really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates."
- Juan Cole.
"Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise."
- James Surowiecki.
"When every one of your arguments is characterized as an attempt to bring back slavery or resegregate lunch counters, it’s a little hard to have any sort of productive debate."
- Ann Coulter.
"If you go in for argument, take care of your temper. Your logic, if you have any, will take care of itself."
- Joseph Farrell.
"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."
- Joseph Joubert.
"Climate change: I say the debate is over. We know the science, we see the threat and we know that the time for action is now."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts."
- Heinz Pagels.
"I don’t feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field."
- Clifford Geertz.
"The key to holding a logical argument or debate is to allow oneself to understand the other person's argument no matter how divergent their views may seem."
- Auliq-Ice.
Thought-Provoking Quotes On Debate
(These amazing and unique quotes on debate are sure to inspire you.)
These thought-provoking debate quotes will make you think about debate from a new perspective.
"The person and society are yoked, like mind and body. Arguing which is more important is like debating whether oxygen or hydrogen is the more essential property of water."
- Marilyn Ferguson.
"It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree."
- Elbert Hubbard.
"Human beings only think and reason with logic if whatever topic that's being debated does not challenge/ridicule their belief system."
- Paballo Nhambiri.
"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."
- Desmond Tutu.
"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."
- Barbara Kruger.
"During last night’s debate, John Kerry and John Edwards were so friendly to each other some political experts think that they may end up running together. In fact, Kerry and Edwards were so friendly, President Bush accused them of planning a gay marriage."
- Conan O’Brien.
"He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute."
- Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Nothing is as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what he's talking about."
- Sam Ewig.
"If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it."
- 'Stranger in a Strange Land', Robert A. Heinlein.
"The national debate on Social Security has been cheapened by demagoguery on all sides."
- Bill Delahunt.
Democratic Quotes On Debate
Debate has been a central part of democratic institutions, and these debate quotes are evidence of that.
"The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines."
- Charles de Gaulle.
"Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate."
- Hubert H. Humphrey.
"Nothing is more dangerous to one's own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate."
- C. S. Lewis.
"Political debate is more interested in manipulating the truth, than finding the truth."
George Soros.
"The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war."
- Martin Van Creveld.
"Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture."
- Ibrahim Babangida.
"Every candidate goes into every debate hoping that they can own a particular moment."
- Peter Jennings.
"I’ve been doing these conventions for 20 years, and we used to at least have debates about issues. Nothing is happening basically at this convention, other than speeches."
- Susan Estrich.
"My point of view, and more importantly, the president's point of view, is that the story is not about me or a debate with news outlets. The story is about the plans of the administration and what we're trying to project to the American people."
- Jen Psaki.
"Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to well-being."
- Diane Abbott.
"The debate on how to shrink the federal government is at the core of our problem of government not doing its job."
- Darrell Issa.
"I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job."
- Margaret Thatcher.
"Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy."
- Jesse Jackson.
"Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly."
- Hillary Clinton.
"This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly."
- Lancelot Hogben.
"Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation."
- Atifete Jahjaga.
"After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land."
- Barack Obama.
"You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions."
- Caleb Cushing.
Famous Quotes On Debate
The following debate quotes are sure to motivate and inspire you.
(Learn some interesting debate quotes here at Kidadl.)
"The power of real debate is in the language and intellectual honesty of the debaters, alongside the engagement of spectators."
- Ruzwana Bashir.
"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo DaVinci.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views.
That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
- Noam Chomsky.
"I will only debate with my equals. All others I teach."
- John Henrik Clarke.
"Good directors don't answer questions with their work. They generate debate and create discussion."
- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
"Debate is an attempt to cling to the illusion of control provided by a point of view designed to keep the ego in place; dialogue is an attempt to dance with the unknown at the risk of losing what we think we know."
- Oli Anderson.
"I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking."
- Charles Krauthammer.
"My measure of success is to walk into a restaurant and hear a table debating drug policy. Once the public starts the conversation, the politicians will join - that is when we can create real change."
- Sam Branson.
"Arguments are like firearms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him."
- Samuel Butler.
"Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country."
- Helen Suzman.
"Defining the terms of the debate generally dictates who’s gonna’ win it."
- Paul Begala.
"In my books, I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they’re welcome. The books aren’t there to accuse others – merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive."
- John Scott.
"For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate."
- Margaret Heffernan.
"Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter."
- Joe Abercrombie.
"This is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what it means to be a member of the human family, even though tiny, powerless, and unwanted."
- Henry Hyde.
"The battle between free will and listening to the inner voice will remain eternal. Similarly, in the debate over material and spiritual rewards; you cannot have both, as the path to acquire each is different."
- Vikram Bhatt.
"There's a time for debate and a time for consensus. There's a time for advocacy and time for first principles."
- Anthony Kennedy.
"Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity."
- Amos Bronson Alcott.
"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein.
"You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic."
- Robert A. Heinlein.
"Don't tell me what I need. Start looking at the people in front of you, appreciate the diversity in the community, respect it. Don't debate it."
- Dominique Jackson.
"People should debate. They shouldn't be afraid to talk. You should listen to what other people think and how they make decisions. There should be an exchange of ideas and opinions because that's how we learn."
- Catriona Gray.
"Debate is the death of conversation."
- Emil Ludwig.
