Disagreement

“ After all, if we coolly consider those arguments which have been bandied about, and retorted with such eagerness and acrimony in the house of commons, and divest them of those passionate tropes and declamatory metaphors which the spirit of opposition alone had produced, we shall find very little left for the subject of dispute, and sometimes be puzzled to discover any material source of disagreement. ”

“ Such blunderings and quarrellings have been a matter of course since politics have been politics, and since religion has been religion. When men combine to do nothing, how should there be disagreement? When men combine to do much, how should there not be disagreement? Thirty men can sit still, each as like the other as peas. ”

“ I recall to your minds these obvious facts, at the risk of being tedious, because to-night, seeing the turn that our discussion has taken, we must regard ourselves as statesmen, or as would-be statesmen. And I, in that capacity, finding myself in disagreement with everybody, except perhaps Cantilupe, and asking myself the reason why, can only conclude that I have a different notion of the end to be pursued, and of the means whereby it can be attained. ”

“ Whatever disagreements we have, on the interpretation of motives and the necessary means for the attainment of the public good, such disagreement nevertheless must not conceal the facts of achievement nor endeavor to obliterate the tangible work that has already been achieve. ”

“ Can anything be achieved by reading books on belief? Yes. I suppose you may show surprise if I say that disagreement is often more useful than agreement. But agreement leading to a placid inactivity is against the very principle of life itself. ”

“ The reason why the mind cannot always perceive presently the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, is, because those ideas, concerning whose agreement or disagreement the inquiry is made, cannot by the mind be so put together as to show it. ”

“ There will be, there must be, constant discussion, argument, contradiction,—for there are always conflicting opinions in every aspect of human affairs,—and it will be my work to put down all contradiction,—all opposition,—and to carry the People’s Cause with a firm hand. Yet—after all, if I succeed, it will be the King’s doing,—not mine! ”

“ What will strike any modern reader as at once the most remarkable, and from a moral point of view the most lamentable, feature in this bitter and important controversy, is that the points in dispute not only were really unimportant, but were admitted on both sides to be so. ”

“ Even old aggressions, of long standing, have their bearings in these disputes. Not shall we find often any clue to a solution of the difficulty in the manifestoes of either party, for each makes his own case good in these; and if we were to decide on the merits of the question by the contents of these, we should often come to the conclusion, that both the parties were wrong. Thus, for instance, a notion may have been guilty of an offence to another. ”

“ What have I been doing all my life but thinking, and waiting for it to be a convenient and suitable time for me to do this or that, wondering what others will think if I do or don't; thinking that the disagreeable was duty, often simply because it was disagreeable. ”

“ If you find that you are being worsted, you can make a diversion—that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute, and afforded an argument against your opponent. ”

“ How much better this thorough interpenetration of ideas than a barren interchange of courtesies, or a bush-fighting argument, in which each man tries to cover as much of himself and expose as much of his opponent as the tangled thicket of the disputed ground will let him! ”

“ There are many conflicts which arise in life which admit of compromise—but you cannot compromise with truth, with virtue, or with honor. These attributes either exist, or they do not—there are no half-ways. ”

“ The same thing is true concerning the discussion of some question by the mir. There are no speeches, no debates, no votes. They shout, they abuse each other, they seem on the point of coming to blows. ”

“ But in stating prudential rules for our government in society, I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassionately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. ”

“ Others repeat them with such facility of assent or dissent, taking their tone from the previous question, that one is equally assured of the same conclusion, or, what is as bad, that they never reflect at all. ”

“ We honor other men's hearts, rather than our own heads. How can it be just, to make the agreement between an opponent's opinion and our own the criterion of his proper conduct of the inquiry? Every man feels the injury the moment the rule is turned against himself; and every good man should be ashamed to direct it against his brother.
3. Our reverend opponents affect to have labored under a great disadvantage, from the absence of any recognized standard of Unitarian belief. ”

“ That discord breeds malignant, treacherous, and violent tempers to fill the magistracy. Are men, rendered miserable, by such evil moral qualities, the best agents for rendering a nation virtuous and happy? ”

“ With him as with other men, the anxiety of undecided controversy, the trial of the temper, the irritating annoyance of reiterated argument, caused more wear and tear than did labour and responsibility. ”

“ To have any agreement those discussing should decide right away on what plane they want to talk. On a superficial and obvious one the terms bravery and cowardice and right and wrong have a certain meaning. ”

“ My conduct denounced and censured without measure, is the continual subject of conversation for gossiping fools and knaves, who form the majority in all communities, and prevail against the infinitely small number to be found of honest, judicious, impartial men, capable of reflection. ”

“ Any one answers too well for me, if he answers what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a master, but my conscience also. ”

“ For what is the natural tendency of such principles? What is their tendency, for instance, in private life? And who are the negotiators on these occasions but men? Which kind of conduct is most likely to disarm an opponent, that of him who holds up his arm to strike, if his opponent should not comply with his terms, or of him who argues justly, who manifests a temper of love and forbearance, and who professes that he will rather suffer than resist, and that he will do every thing sooner than that the affair shall not be amicably settled? ”

“ There is no falsehood, no hypocrisy, no sanctimoniousness, there are no compromises of any sort, neither with public opinion, nor with the importunate authority of our forefathers, nor with one’s own conscience. ”

“ Because there is a more or less widespread conviction that events, circumstances, conditions are things to be battled with, in case they are not agreeable, and that there is a signal virtue in overcoming them. ”

“ The disputes are all upon these last, and I will venture to say they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of morality. ”

“ Much more, then, shall we be uneasy, if some one, whom we do not think to be mad, disagrees with us. We shall try to argue with him, and we shall probably be content if we lead him to agree with us, although we shall not have proved our point. ”

“ The passions of the rival parties became so intense as seemingly to render agreement between them impossible, either with regard to facts or conclusions. It may not even be safe to assume that the truth lies midway between the extremes. ”

“ If it is true, and I believe it will be found to be true, that whatsoever we sow we shall reap; let us pause, and beware that we do not sow the seeds of discord among our brethren--it will be a root of bitterness that will spring up and fasten on the vitals of our republic; will eat like a canker and bring forth the poisonous fruits of discontent, contention, confusion, and universal discord, and perhaps in the last resort end so dissolution or separation, which is more to be dreaded than all the evils that can be placed upon us by the united world. ”

“ Only when in dispute are their voices and actions unsubdued. As a rule, they are not good in conversation; any point is made clear by the relation of some parallel tale; and always the men are ready to loiter and to loaf. ”

“ Consider how many disputes have arisen in the world, in which both parties were so violent in what they believed to be the support of truth, and which to the public, and indeed to themselves a few years afterwards, appeared unwise, because the occasion or cause of it was not worth contending about. ”

“ In fact, who can doubt that there is on both sides a determined foregone conclusion on the point in dispute, and that no one individual on either side would hold himself bound in conscience to abide by the decision. ”

“ Anybody, who has experienced, written, read, heard, or seen, even a little of this ever-recurrent hanging controversy, loathes its very atmosphere, and gladly retreats from it, seldom without a sense of protest, and a chafing at injustice. ”

“ They still smart under the reciprocal wrongs inflicted, they still recall the gloating fiendishness of their foes, and apart from any recollections of outrage, they rather make a point of honor of their inflexibility. ”

“ For we all have either to assent to a small clique, to the utter loss of our dignity, or to dissent to no purpose. My chief object in writing to you thus is that you may consider carefully what line you will also take yourself. ”

“ When facts conflict, contradict one another, melt into one another as the colours of the spectrum so insensibly that none can say where one begins and the other ends, contradictions in terms become first fruits of thought and speech. ”

“ You don't know, Dudley, that whenever our intercourse rises above the common passing courtesies of mere acquaintanceship, it is certain to end in a quarrel. We must never condemn or approve. We must never venture upon an opinion, lest it lead to a discussion, for discussion means a fight. ”

“ These questions which come into conflict first by arguing and resisting, are, as I have said, of wide extent and doubtful meaning. The comparison of the arguments and corroborative proofs narrows the question in dispute. In conjecture there is no dispute at all. For no one either can, or ought to, or is accustomed to, give a reason for an act which he asserts never took place. ”

“ Now when such a state of things exists, that the sacred opinions one advances in argument are apologized for by his friends, before his face, lest his hearers receive a wrong impression of the man,—when such gross injustice is of frequent occurrence, where shall we look, and not look in vain, for men, deeds, thoughts? ”

“ We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. ”

“ But the things which are in the habit of being said, for the sake of amplification, or in the way of digression, or when men are summing up, are introduced either to excite hatred, or pity, or to work on the feelings of the judges by means of those arguments which have been already given; provided that the importance of the facts, or the envy of men, or the dignity of the parties, will allow of it. ”

“ It was there that I learned to disagree without being disagreeable; to seek compromise while holding fast to those principles that can never be compromised, and to always assume the best in people instead of the worst. ”

“ I venture to say that the levity with which bad precedents are sometimes employed and admitted as arguments in the discussion of public questions bids fair to produce a confusion of moral, legal and political notions which will have a most sinister influence upon the popular conscience. ”

“ Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support, as upon those who oppose, the right side of a question. ”

“ It argues rather, those men to be conscious of their defects of Reason, and convincing Arguments, who call in the assistance of meer force to carry on the weakness of their Counsels and Proposals. I may, in the truth and uprightness of my heart, protest before God and men, That I never wilfully opposed, or denied any thing that was in a fair way, after full and free debates propounded to me by the two Houses, further then I thought in good reason I might, and was bound to do. ”

“ Throughout the history of civilisation, wherever we can trace the feelings and ideas which have prevailed on this matter and the resultant conduct, the problem has existed, often to produce discord, conflict, and misery. ”

“ When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. ”