Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach on debate

Whoever prefers the material comforts of life over intellectual wealth is like the owner of a palace who moves into the servants’ quarters and leaves the sumptuous rooms empty.

The world would be in better shape if people would take the same pains in the practice of the simplest moral laws as they exert in intellectualizing over the most subtle moral questions.

Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness.

A great many of those who ‘debunk’ traditional…values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Abolition of Man

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.

Dave Barryborn 1947

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

Margaret Thatcher1925–2013From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986)