Dispute Quotes

This truth may be handled either sinfully or profitably; sinfully as when it is treated on only to satisfy curiosity, and to keep up a mere barren speculative dispute ... This point of election ... is not to be agitated in a verbal and contentious way, but in a saving way, to make us tremble and to set us upon a more diligent and close striving with God in prayer, and all other duties. ~ Anthony Burgess

Cambodians resent outsiders' implications that they are a nation of shell-shocked survivors, but in 2004 news from police stations around the country made it impossible not to notice how many seemingly pedestrian conflicts escalated into stunning violence: the farmer who beheaded his neighbor with a machete in a dispute over a fence; the disgruntled relative who stormed away from an argument at a wedding and returned to douse the guests with battery acid. ~ Corinne Purtill

The partisan when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. ~ Socrates

There is an eternal dispute between those who imagine the world to suit their policy, and those who correct their policy to suit the realities of the world. ~ Albert Sorel

The manufactured consensus of the IPCC has had the unintended consequences of distorting the science, elevating the voices of scientists that dispute the consensus, and motivating actions by the consensus scientists and their supporters that have diminished the public's trust in the IPCC. ~ Judith Curry

Bob Sanders wasn't the biggest guy coming out of Erie, Pa., but I don't think anybody would dispute that he was a pretty good player for us. ~ Kirk Ferentz

Do not dispute your thirst of water…
…not with the flowing brook. ~ Vijay Fafat

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. ~ John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above. ~ Edmund Waller

I like the term "decedent." It's as though the man weren't dead, but merely involved in some sort of protracted legal dispute. For evident reasons, mortuary science is awash with euphemisms. "Don't say stiff, corpse, cadaver," scolds The Principles and Practice of Embalming. "Say decedent, remains or Mr. Blank. Don't say 'keep.' Say 'maintain preservation.' ... "Wrinkles are "acquired facial markings." Decomposed brain that filters down through a damaged skull and bubbles out the nose is "frothy purge. ~ Mary Roach

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I do find London exciting. Much as I hate to agree with that tedious old git Samuel Johnson, and despite the pompous imbecility of his famous remark about when a man is tired of London he is tired of life ... I can't dispute it. ~ Bill Bryson

It's not just that there are two sides to every dispute. It's that each side sincerely believes its version of the story, namely that it is an innocent and long-suffering victim and the other side a malevolent and treacherous sadist. ~ Steven Pinker

Respecting infinite sets, for example, Intuitionism is rabidly anti-Cantor and Formalism staunchly pro-Cantor, even though both Formalism and Intuitionism are anti-Plato and Cantor is a diehard Platonist. Which, migrainous or not, means we're back to metaphysics: the modern wrangle over math's procedures is ultimately a dispute over the ontological status of math entities. ~ David Foster Wallace

Even the law of gravitation would be brought into dispute were there a pecuniary interest involved. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.
Well, there's no good response to that. I can hardly dispute it since I was walking around with a syringe to kill Peeta when I found them. Do I really want him dead? What I want ... what I want is to have him back. ~ Suzanne Collins

Politics has become incendiary. People don't find it so funny now so I have to be careful, but I have to wake them up with some truths and the truths I aim at them are over 100 years old. Facts that no one can dispute. ~ Hal Holbrook

FRIAR LAURENCE: Thou fond mad man, hear me but
speak a word.
ROMEO: O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE: I'll give thee armour to keep off
that word:
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO: Yet "banished"? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE: O, then I see that madmen
have no ears.
ROMEO: How should they, when that wise men
have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE: Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO: Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou
tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave. ~ William Shakespeare

I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations. ~ Shakira

Always make it a goal to keep your conversations cordial. Sometimes that will not be possible. If a principled, charitable expression of your ideas makes someone mad, there's little you can do about it. Jesus' teaching made some people furious. Just make sure it's your ideas that offend and not you, that your beliefs cause the dispute and not your behavior. ~ Greg Koukl

When 'Dirty Mack' salts your flow, get beyond feelings of hurt, anger, bitterness, and especially vengeance. Be glad, and take refuge in knowing light has been cast on the shadow of hatred, envy or jealousy that has mocked your shine. And press forward with your purpose - allowing time and space to clear the way for karmic justice on your behalf. ~ T.F. Hodge

Sire, there is a messenger from the enemy who craves audience."
"Let him approach," said Aslan.
The leopard went away and soon returned leading the Witch's Dwarf.
"What is your message, Son of Earth?" asked Aslan.
"The Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands desires a safe conduct to come and speak with you," said the Dwarf, "on a matter which is as much to your advantage as to hers."
"Queen of Narnia, indeed!" said Mr. Beaver. "Of all the cheek--"
"Peace, Beaver," said Aslan. "All names will soon be restored to their proper owners. In the meantime we will not dispute about noises. ~ C.S. Lewis

It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavor to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get in. ~ Charles Dickens

Among the gods, there is a dispute as to which one of them originally thought of Christianity; or, as they call it, the Great Leg Pull. Apollo has the best claim, but a sizeable minority support Pluto, ex-God of the Dead, on the grounds that he has a really sick sense of humour.
How would it be, suggested the unidentified god, if first we tell them all to love their neighbour, pack in the killing and thieving, and be nice to each other. Then we let them start burning heretics. ~ Tom Holt

Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative, or so we presume, for nobody returns to dispute it. Such is my motto. ~ Neil Gaiman

The nature of atheism merits clarification on two further points which involve less common ideas about theism. The first involves the idea of 'God' which is metaphorical - for example, a theist who believes in 'God' as a principle of conscience or morality. This 'God' exists in a person's mind and it is not something which atheists will dispute. Atheists agree that gods exist as ideas in people's minds; the disagreement lies over whether any gods actually exist independently of human beliefs. Those are the gods which atheists disbelieve in or deny.

The second type of theism involves gods that exist as physical objects: stones, trees, rivers, or even the universe itself. Believers treat these objects are their gods, but do atheists reject their existence? Of course not - but how do they then remain atheists? The point of disagreement here is whether the label 'god' communicates any information beyond the more common label of 'stone,' 'tree,' or 'universe.' If not, then as far as atheists are concerned, those objects don't merit the extra label 'god' and they remain atheists. ~ Austin Cline

Burnside left even sooner, hard on the heels of a violent argument with Meade, an exchange of recriminations which a staff observer said went far toward confirming one's belief in the wealth and flexibility of the English language as a medium of personal dispute. ~ Shelby Foote

I will not resolve a land dispute if civil groups or politicians are involved in the land disputes. ~ Hun Sen

The only certain rule is the one that Aristotle already gave: do not dispute with anyone and everyone, but only with those people you know who are intelligent enough to avoid saying things that are so stupid as to expose themselves to humiliation, who appreciate the truth, and who gladly listen to good reasons, even when the opponent claims them, and who are balanced enough to bear a defeat when the truth is on the other side. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Artists disbelieve and dispute society's most cherished notions. ~ Eric Maisel

Most argument, and in fact most conflict, has nothing to do with the present. It's always about the past or the future. People can't agree on the details of what has happened or is going to happen. But we rarely know what has happened, and we never know what is going to happen. What is really at dispute is how we will deal with not knowing. ~ Steven Galloway

Patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president's particular agenda - and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American. ~ John Irving

A laconic Texas lawmaker declined to use his considerable influence to intervene in a loud dispute between his colleagues. When asked why not, he said, They're not voting. If they're not voting, they're not passing any laws. If they're not passing any laws, they're not hurting anybody. ~ Robert A. Caro

I have no dispute with any man concerning morals, but only concerning the word of truth. In all other things I will yield to any one, but I neither can nor will forsake and deny the word. He who thinks otherwise of me, or has taken in my words in another sense, does not think rightly, and has not taken in the truth. ~ Martin Luther

And what is sin?' said Cotgrave.
'I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?
'Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is. ~ Arthur Machen

It's true we have our disagreements on border issues, we have disagreements on trade and related issues, but you don't go invading a country whenever you have a dispute on trade issues, ... We have more civilized mechanisms on resolving such problems. ~ Meles Zenawi

People of faith can read the Bible so that almost any perspective on a current issue will find some support in the Bible. That rich and multivoiced offering in the Bible is what makes appeals to it so tempting - and yet so tricky and hazardous, because much of our reading of the Bible turns out to be an echo of what we thought anyway. THE ISSUE OF LAND The dispute between Palestinians and Israelis is elementally about land and secondarily about security and human rights. ~ Walter Brueggemann

There is no dispute: Jacob Zuma has ripped the society and state to shreds. He swore at his inauguration to be faithful to our country and that he would observe, uphold and maintain our beautiful Constitution. It was all bullshit. ~ Jacques Pauw

There was plenty of evidence that Saddam had nuclear weapons, by the way. That is not in dispute. There is plenty of evidence of that. ~ Christopher Dodd

Nature is behaving with us like that elderly rabbi to whom two men went in order to settle a dispute. Having listened to the first, the rabbi says: "You are in the right." The second insists on being heard. The rabbi listens to him and says: "You're also right." Having overheard from the next room, the rabbi's wife then calls out, "But they can't both be in the right!" The rabbi reflects and nods before concluding: "And you're right too." A ~ Carlo Rovelli

The thing about alcohol, though non-drinkers, non-alcoholics and reformed alcoholics may falsely dispute this, is that each day, or night on booze, is a different journey, the destination being a mystery, but quite possibly the final one. ~ Robert Black

I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,' I answered, 'and not one atom more of it to you than He allows. What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute possession of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy - and yourself among the rest - if you are a blessing, which I am half inclined to doubt. ~ Anne Bronte

I understand you well. Now we have no need to dispute: you are awake, and so you have seen the difference between us, the difference between men akin to their father and those who take their destiny from a woman; the difference between spirit and intellect. ~ Hermann Hesse

Arguing with somebody is never pleasant, but sometimes it is useful and necessary to do so. ~ Lemony Snicket

I grew up in what my mom will always dispute as 'the hood.' She just doesn't like the name. But it had its similarities to any neighborhood like that. The all-black neighbors and the all-black problems and the all-black happiness. And I really loved it. ~ Jerrod Carmichael

What there is no dispute about is whether or not China is a currency manipulator. They are a currency manipulator. They actively intervene every single day to keep the value of their currency less than it would be against the dollar than if it floated freely. We think. Even China barely disputes that. ~ Adam Davidson

However accurate or inaccurate the agency's numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right
and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong
in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties. ~ James Bovard

Your conflicts reflect subminds in dispute. Such is the human condition ~ Gregory Benford

At one point, when I was 20 and living in Kentucky, I got shot - it was a land dispute over six inches of property that ran a hundred yards through my grandfather's land. It was really over the honor of my family and that of another family. ~ Jack Bowman

The seventeenth century is everywhere a time in which the state's power over everything individual increases, whether that power be in absolutist hands or may be considered the result of a contract, etc. People begin to dispute the sacred right of the individual ruler or authority without being aware that at the same time they are playing into the hands of a colossal state power. ~ Jacob Burckhardt

Nocturnă

Uitarea venea... a venit.
O lacrimă cade jos, totul tace,
Lampa obosită a clipit,
Orice obiect atins şopteşte: lasă-mă-n pace...

De-acum...
Auzi, ploaia plânge pe drum
Pe un adânc tumult,
Pe urma unui mic pantof într-un parc
de demult...

Adorm... ascult...
Afară, la fereastră, toamna a spus:
- Of!

Nocturne

Oblivion comes . . . came.
A tear falls; total silence,
The tired lamp twinkles,
Every touched thing whispers, let me alone.

Now...
Listen, outside the rain sheds its tears ―
A serious dispute centers on
A scrap of a small shoe in an old park . . .

I sleep . . . I listen . . .
Outside a window, autumn says:
Oh! ~ George Bacovia

What is without dispute ... is that the readers need [the BookWorld] just as much as we need them - to bring order to their apparent chaos, if nothing else. ~ Jasper Fforde

Dear Mr Worsthorne,
My attention has only been drawn to an astonishing attack you made some months ago in 'The Sunday Telegraph' on that fine man Lord Longford.
'That Lord Longford should team up with Janie Jones, the convicted procuress,' you wrote, 'may not at first glance seem to be a matter meriting much adverse comment. It might even be thought desirable, and a mark of a civilised society, for such a universally execrated wretch to have at least one friend in high places'.
Well! Calling Lord Longford a universally execrated wretch is irresponsible journalism at it's worst, in my opinion, and I would strenuously dispute that Miss Janie Jones moves in high places. ~ William Donaldson

There is one further distinguishing characteristic of man which is very specific indeed and about which there can be no dispute, and that is the faculty of self-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, progressively develops all our other faculties. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully. ~ William Kirby

ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. ( ... ) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice. ~ Aeschylus

Those who claim for themselves to judge the truth are bound to possess a criterion of truth. This criterion, then, either is without a judge's approval or has been approved. But if it is without approval, whence comes it that it is truthworthy? For no matter of dispute is to be trusted without judging. And, if it has been approved, that which approves it, in turn, either has been approved or has not been approved, and so on ad infinitum. ~ Sextus Empiricus

The buttons of his dark blue uniform allude to an ongoing border dispute with his soft belly. ~ Colson Whitehead

That's what the holidays are for - for one person to tell the stories and another to dispute them. Isn't that the Irish way? ~ Lara Flynn Boyle

A man will not stand alone and a nation that does not respect work will not prosper. Each man that serves will flourish and one who serves will be served. A nation that relies on lazy hands will not succeed and a nation that waits to be served won't gain but will lose out. A nation depends on its servants and where a leader serves no one can dispute the work of a leader. Can a moon take over the work of the sun? ~ David Ssembajjo

And now, I, Moroni would speaksomewhatconcerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye seenot, for ye recieve no witness until after the trial of your faith.
For it was by Faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had fiath in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in hime, for he showed himself not unto the world. ~ The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason. ~ Charles Churchill

A common error of western commentators who seek to interpret Islamism sympathetically is to view it as a form of localised resistance to globalisation. In fact, Islamism is also a universalist political project. Along with Neoliberals and Marxists, Islamists are participants in a dispute about how the world as whole is to be governed. None is ready to entertain the possibility that it should always contain a diversity of regimes. On this point, they differ from non-western traditions of thinking in India, China and Japan, which are much more restrained in making universal claims.

In their unshakeable faith that one way of living is best for all humankind, the chief protagonists in the dispute about political Islam belong to a way of thinking that is quintessentially western. As in Cold War times, we are led to believe we are locked in a clash of civilisations: the West against the rest. In truth, the ideologues of political Islam are western voices, no less than Marx or Hayek. The struggle with radical Islam is yet another western family quarrel. ~ John N. Gray

We were strong. We stayed bright as lightning,
we sang loud as thunder, we moved ever forward.
We are not our failures. We are love. ~ La Dispute

If there is a dispute between the mind and the heart the mind should win. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

No matter how people try to dispute it, perception is reality. Its what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Newton was an unquestioning believer in an all-wise creator of the universe, and in his own inability - like the boy on the seashore - to fathom the entire ocean in all its depths. He therefore believed that there were not only many things in heaven beyond his philosophy, but plenty on earth as well, and he made it his business to understand for himself what the majority of intelligent men of his time accepted without dispute (to them it was as natural as common sense) - the traditional account of the creation. ~ Isaac Newton

Fost. So (said he), I understand: but well, if you will promise to call the people no more together, you shall have your liberty to go home; for my brother is very loath to send you to prison, if you will be but ruled. Bun. Sir (said I), pray what do you mean by calling the people together? my business is not anything among them, when they are come together, but to exhort them to look after the salvation of their souls, that they may be saved, etc. Fost. Saith he, We must not enter into explication, or dispute now; but if you will say you will call the people no more together, you may have your liberty; if not, you must be sent away to prison. Bun. Sir, said I, I shall not force or compel any man to hear me; but yet, if I come into any place where there is a people met together, I should, according to the best of my skill and wisdom, exhort and counsel them to seek out after the Lord Jesus Christ, for the salvation of their souls. ~ John Bunyan

Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is so; it is not so. ~ Benjamin Franklin

One cannot dispute the fact that giving poor black adolescents job skills, if it is self-evident that they do not possess the academic skills to go to college, is a good thing in itself. But the business leaders who put emphasis on filling entry-level job slots are too frequently the people who, by prior lobbying and voting patterns and their impact upon social policy, have made it all but certain that few of these urban kids would get the education in their early years that would have made them look like college prospects by their secondary years. First we circumscribe their destinies and then we look at the diminished product and we say, "Let's be pragmatic and do with them what we can. ~ Jonathan Kozol

She told me she loved him." "Well, girls always love assholes," said Platt, not bothering to dispute this. "Haven't you noticed? ~ Donna Tartt

T lay in the true function of the university to promote that interplay of view, that discussion and dispute, that cumulative narrowing down of possibilities that led to the formation of accurate opinion. The students could be, as it were (he said), the rubbing post for the thought of his teacher. ~ Malcolm Bradbury

People say footballers have terrible taste in music but I would dispute that. In the car at the moment I've got The Corrs, Cher, Phil Collins, Shania Twain and Rod Stewart. ~ Andy Gray

I do not dispute with the world, it is the world that disputes with me. A speaker of Dhamma does not dispute with anyone in the world. ~ Bhikkus

Large scale collective bargaining ... is merely a seductive name for bilateral monopoly, and means either adjudication of conflicts in terms of power, or deadlock and stoppage, usually injuring outside people more than the immediate parties to the dispute. ~ Frank Knight

Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What I am after in this dispute is to me something serious, necessary, and indeed eternal, something of such a kind and such importance that it ought to be asserted and defended to the death, even if the whole world had not only to be thrown into strife and confusion, but actually to return to total chaos and be reduced to nothingness. ~ Martin Luther

The basis of self-ownership is the fact that each person has direct control over the scarce resource of his body and therefore has a better claim to it than any third party (and any third party seeking to dispute my self-ownership must presuppose the principle of self-ownership in the first place since he is acting as a self-owner). ~ Stephan Kinsella

No legal system can maintain justice unless every participant - magisters, prosecutors, Legums, defendants, witnesses, all - risks life itself in whatever dispute comes before the bar. Everything must be risked in the Courtarena. If any element remains outside the contest and without personal risk, justice inevitably fails.
- Gowachin Law ~ Frank Herbert

I enter into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production of human wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Without the existance of people to acknowledge or dispute your greatness, your greatness is irrelevant. You are because they are. Without them, no matter how they treat you, you would not exist. Treat all the world as if you owe it your gratitude, because even the cruel and heartless define who you are. ~ Jayleigh Cape

[T]hose who willed the means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality to match their schemes. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Besides, we shall want employments for our senses, and subjects for arguments; for were there nothing but truth, and no falsehood, there would be no occasion for to dispute, and by this means we should want the aim and pleasure of our endeavours in confuting and contradicting each other; neither would one man be thought wiser than another, but all would either be alike knowing and wise, or all would be fools ... ~ Margaret Cavendish

But I hear Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the time."
"About what?"
"About the papers."
"My dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do I ever read the papers?"
"Then you will dispute the more."
"M. Beauchamp," announced the servant.
"Come in, come in," said Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man.
"Here is Debray, who detests you without reading you, so he says."
"He is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him without knowing what he does. ~ Alexandre Dumas

At no point in this did Frank think he was dreaming, probably because he seldom remembered dreams, or paid attention to them even if he did. And though this all had the alert immediacy of daytime Mexico in its ongoing dispute with its history, it would someday be relegated as well to the register of experiences he had been unable to find any use for. ~ Thomas Pynchon

I was a Shoemaker, & got my living by my Labor. When this Rebellion come on, I saw some of my Neighbors got into Commission, who were no better than myself. I was very ambitious, & did not like to see those Men above me. I was asked to enlist as a private Soldier. . . I offered to enlist upon having a Lieutenants Commission; which was granted. I imagined my self now in a way of Promotion: if I was killed in Battle, there would be an end of me, but if my Captain was killed, I should rise in Rank, & should still have a Chance to rise higher. These Sir! were the only Motives of my entering into the Service; for as the Dispute between Great Britain & the colonies, I know nothing of it. . . ~ Howard Zinn

It is incumbent on us diligently to remember that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of mankind cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge. ~ Edward Gibbon

I may dispute, in favour of my chosen road, the road that someone else has taken. I may criticize the workings of his logic ... But I must respect the man, if he toils towards the same star. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Like George Washington, we are quick to dismiss politics. This is naïve. Conflict in politics is not only inevitable; it is axiomatically imperative. Politics is division. Political parties do not exist arbitrarily, but are a rational, practical response to dispute. As long as we keep our republic - and in fact even if we do not - people will form cliques in order to forward their agendas. The only way to remove the need for parties, and the disruption they cause, is to remove the capacity for disagreement completely. One cannot help but suspect that for some who claim to find antagonism so tiring, this is the latent desire. ~ Charles C.W. Cooke

It is possible for you to be the wrong one in an argument about you. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over. ~ Henrik Ibsen

Little is taught by contest or dispute, everything by sympathy and love. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

To dispute with a drunkard is to debate with an empty house. ~ Publilius Syrus

Our great Pattern hath showed us what our deportment ought to be in all suggestions and temptations. When the devil showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," to tempt Him withal, He did not stand and look upon them, viewing their glory, and pondering their empire ... but instantly, without stay, He cries, "Get thee hence, Satan." Meet thy temptation in its entrance with thoughts of faith concerning Christ on the cross; this will make it sink before thee. Entertain no parley, no dispute with it, if thou wouldst not enter into it. ~ John Owen

If my opinion that substance requires a true unity were founded only on a definition I had formulated in opposition to common usage, *then the dispute would be only one of words*. But besides the fact that most philosophers have taken the term in almost the same fashion, distinguishing between a unity in itself and an accidental unity, between substantial and accidental form, and between perfect and imperfect, natural and artificial mixtures, I take things to a much higher level, and setting aside the question of terminology, *I believe that where there are only beings by aggregation, there aren't any real beings*. For every being by aggregation presupposes beings endowed with real unity, because every being derives its reality only from the reality of those beings of which it is composed, so that it will not have any reality at all if each being of which it is composed is itself a being by aggregation, a being for which we must still seek further grounds for its reality, grounds which can never be found in this way, if we must always continue to seek for them. I agree, Sir, that there are only machines (that are often animated) in all of corporeal nature, but I do not agree that *there are only aggregates of substances, there must also be true substances from which all the aggregates result.

We must, then, necessarily come down to the atoms of Epicurus and Cordemoy (which are things you reject along with me), or else we must admit that we do not find any reality i ~ Huston Smith

I am, of course, directly descended from Brian Boru, the last king of Ireland, a fact certified by my mother and therefore beyond dispute. But as everybody else with a drop of Irish blood in his carcass is also a guaranteed descendant of the old billy goat, I am not overly arrogant because of this royal strain. ~ Preston Sturges

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. ~ Bertrand Russell

Very often what happens in a local church today is that differences grow around personalities (either from within the church fellowship or from the wider church) and then become articulated around matters of doctrinal dispute. There may well be genuine theological disagreement, but the 'strife' emerges because personal relationships are not good. When the love of God is truly controlling such relationships within a church, areas of disagreement find their proper perspective and do not necessitate 'strife', let alone 'schism'.3 So-called 'clashes of personality' often, on analysis, are nothing much more than a failure, or even a refusal, to let God's love change us in our attitudes to one another. We allow theological differences (instead of the love of God) to determine the quality, openness and depth of our relationships. ~ David Prior

In every dispute between parent and child, both cannot be right, but they may be, and usually are, both wrong. It is this situation which gives family life its peculiar hysterical charm. ~ Isaac Rosenfeld