Quotes on Discussion

When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.

Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the latter, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause - and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.

There is a daily discussion with our servants about the price of food and the number of loaves: a conference with our presbyters to consider the sins of our people is a very rare occurrence.

To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful. [...] The question is going to be whether in these discussions they show themselves moving clearly in that direction.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.

Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.

I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!

War is not a computer-generated missile striking a digital map. War is the color of earth as it explodes in our faces, the sound of child pleading, the smell of smoke and fear. Women survivors of war are not the single image portrayed on the television screen, but the glue that holds families and countries together. Perhaps by understanding women, and the other side of war ... we will have more humility in our discussions of wars... perhaps it is time to listen to womens side of history.

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.

Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.

Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -but no opinion.

Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.

Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed.