Dispute

“ And if, thanks to cooperation, continuous dispute, defending our arguments against critique, we have a feeling that our opinions on many matters are simply better, why would we not expect a serious dialogue with the government? ”

“ And should a man have a dispute with another, be it on matters of religion or on others, then he is without riot or disturbances to appear before the burgomasters, the town-councillors, or judges in an orderly fashion and state his case. ”

“ This act of spinning up the disagreement is itself 'speaking truth to power'; and the more heated the dispute gets, the more you show your courage and integrity by continuing in the same antagonizing vein. ”

“ If I wanted any further evidence of this, the moral atmosphere which words diffuse, I would ask you to observe how the first thing men do, when engaged in controversy with others, be it in the conflict of the tongue or the pen, or of weapons more wounding yet, if such there be, is ever to assume some honourable name to themselves, such as, if possible, shall beg the whole subject in dispute, and at the same time to affix on their adversaries a name which shall place them in a ridiculous or contemptible or odious light. ”

“ Here is an example of news which is of the utmost possible importance to the commonwealth, and to each of us individually. To understand why a vast domestic dispute has arisen is the very first necessity for a sound civic judgment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of controversy, in short, in all ages and nations, is a history of disputes about words. The hardest problems, the keenest negotiations, the most momentous decisions, have turned on the meaning of a phrase, a term, or even a particle. ”

“ If these circumstances form, in reality, the whole of that necessity, which we conceive in matter, and if these circumstances be also universally acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind, the dispute is at an end ”

“ De quoi dispute-t-on? what is the matter under discussion? — de; to contend for.
disputer, v.a., to contend for, to dispute, to call in question; to fight for. Il lui dispute le pas; he contends with him for precedence. — le passage à quelqu’un; to oppose any one’s passage. ”

“ For my part, replies the other, I will proceed, and do what in my judgment ought to be previously done in all disputes; which is, that the subject of dispute should be cleared up, lest the debate should be obliged to wander, and go out of the way, if the disputants have not the same notions of their subject. For, supposing it were asked, what is the art of a general, I should think it right, in the first place, to fix what is meant by a general ”

“ Should what I have written have any tendency to promote union and friendly feelings, between the parties to a dispute which has for nearly eighteen hundred years occasioned such cruel oppressions and bloody persecutions to the side which is in the right, I shall not have lived in vain ”

“ It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy, but he who has shown the most forbearance and the better temper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Debate, dispute, controversy, argumentation, verbal contest. Disputatious, a. Cavilling, captious, contentious, quarrelsome, polemical. Dispute, v. n. 1. Debate, argue, contend in argument. 2. Bicker, wrangle, quarrel, BRAWL, spar, spat, jangle, squabble, TIFF, fall out, have words, have an altercation. Dispute, v. a. 1. Debate, discuss, agitate, ventilate, argue, reason about. 2. Controvert, impugn, call in question, oppose by argument. Dispute, n. Debate, disputation, discussion, controversy, altercation, verbal contest, verbal quarrel, war of words. ”

“ REQUISITE FOR DISPUTATION.—He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute. ”

“ When a week went past, and all the efforts made by the men and their leaders failed to gain a settlement of the dispute, some of the rougher and wilder of the men proposed that, as they could not get what they wanted by fair means, they should adopt other measures. ”

“ 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 yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, of 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. ”

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

“ 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! ”

“ Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then with the men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would consume too much space to enter into argument upon argument anent a question which, ever since the rebellion, has grown from the seeds so profusely scattered in the grounds of dispute on both sides. ”

“ The disposition which is ready to yield or to be reconciled, the meek and philanthropic spirit, the settlement of disputes, and even the surrender of one’s rights are not always incompatible with my theory. What it is opposed to is simply the unworthy endurance of wrong through cowardice or indolence. ”

“ The energies of the rarely wastes itself in disputes people, great as [43] the territory about domestic grievances. For all they inhabit, are rarely wasted in internal evils, how great soever, internal disputes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For now the field is not far off,
Where we must give the world a proof
Of deeds, not words, and such as suit
Another manner of dispute; ”

“ We must put aside these disputes and controversies, nay, rather must we consign them to utter oblivion and arise to do that which is indispensable and which is demanded of us in this Day. Controversies are words and not significances, theories and not realities. ”

“ “Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right. ”

“ Controversies have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, which resolve entirely into verbal disputes, or at most into questions of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at issue. ”

“ It is just the contrary mode of thinking, and the conduct produced by it, which occasions all those trivial disputes that slowly corrode domestic peace, and insensibly destroy what great misfortunes could not sweep away. ”

“ Arguments are too much like disputes. ”

“ It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are. ”

“ Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination. ”

“ Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen! ”

“ What is wanted, in these various conflicts, is some principle, genuinely believed, which will have justice for its outcome. The tug of war of mutual self-assertion can only result in justice through an accidental equality of force. ”

“ We can only conjecture dimly what difference holds between a balance and reconciliation of impulses and a mere rivalry or conflict. One difference is that a balance sustains one state of mind, but a conflict two alternating states. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In human life some sort of a clash arises fairly often, as for instance between domestic duties and the call of the country or the cause, or between the claim of the country and the good of humanity or some larger religious or moral principle. ”

“ Such counsels of force are in the court of passion, not of reason. Imagine such a conflict, imagine a victory, no matter by which side. Can the victors rejoice in the blood of brethren shed in a family brawl? ”

“ Take heed to yourselves, v. 9. Though you may escape the sword of war, better than some of your neighbours, because you interest not yourselves in the public quarrels, yet be not secure; you will be exposed to the sword of justice more than others, and the parties that contend with one another, will unite against you. ”

“ This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression: a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men grown and growing up. ”

“ 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 can see intestine discords, our government disorganized, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied, and un-redressed, peace with dishonor, or war without justice, union, or resources, in 'the calm lights of mild philosophy.' ... ”

“ I bid you prepare yourselves against existing enemies, and I declare that with this same [p. 77] force you should resist the king and all other people, if they attempt to injure you; but never inflict an injustice either in word or deed. Let us look that our actions, and not our speeches on the platform, be worthy of our ancestors. If you pursue this course you will do service not only to yourselves but also to them who give the opposite counsel, since you will not be angry with them afterward for your errors committed now. ”

“ 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? ”