Nobody is ever convinced by argument, anyway. They just think up new reasons for maintaining old positions and become more defensive.

It is no good my telling you. One never believes other people's experiences and one is only very gradually convinced by one's own.

...and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing.

Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.

Arguing from facts never wins a definitive victory against skillfully presented opinion.

You never win an argument until they attack your person.

People rid the room of argument until they have no one left — except people who agree with them. It is understandable. But I like a good argument.

No one properly gets, or can fully sympathize with, anyone else.

...never [enter] 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, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.

Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.

Many argue; not many converse.