When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of using appropriate arguments depending on one's situation.
Al Gore's quote reflects the idea that effective argumentation relies on the facts and legal principles available. When facts or legal standing can support a position, those should be the focus of the argument. However, in the absence of both, one may resort to more emotional appeals, indicated humorously by the suggestion to 'holler', highlighting the often frustrating nature of debate when one lacks solid ground.
In practice
A lawyer could use this quote during a courtroom session to emphasize how they will approach their case.
Global warming is real and human activity is the main cause. The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophic, unless we act. However, the good news is that we can meet this challenge. It is not too late, and we have everything we need to get started.
The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
I think it's harder for people than it should be. But as more and more of us become carbon neutral and change the patterns in our lives to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, we are now beginning to see the changes in policy that are needed.
We have a planetary emergency. We have to find a way to create, in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete.
I can see in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden.
When I was an orphan, I was the richest kid at the orphanage because everyone else was complaining about not having anything. But when I discovered that you could get two cents for a Coca-Cola bottle, I would follow people around who were drinking it and ask them if they were almost through with it.
Feminism is not just about women; it's about letting all people lead fuller lives.
As the great Confucius said, "The one who would be in constant happiness must frequently change." Flow. But we keep looking back, don't we? We cling to things in the past and cling to things in the present...Do you want to enjoy a symphony? Don't hold on to a few bars of the music. Don't hold on to a couple of notes. Let them pass, let them flow. The whole enjoyment of a symphony lies in your readiness to allow the notes to pass.
When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him.
I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.
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