The noble Lord (Stanley) was the Prince Rupert to the Parliamentary army—his valour did not always serve his own cause.
A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.
How agree the kettle and the earthen pot together?
The daughter of debate
That still discord doth sow.
Reproachful speech from either side
The want of argument supplied;
They rail, reviled; as often ends
The contests of disputing friends.
I always admired Mrs. Grote's saying that politics and theology were the only two really great subjects.
His conduct still right with his argument wrong.
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For even though vanquished he could argue still.
I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.
Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He'll bray you in a mortar.
Seria risu risum, seriis discutere.
In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash—the Rupert of debate.
In argument with men a woman ever
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door wherein I went.
Discors concordia.
Agreeing to differ.
Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours."
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past,
We find our tenets just the same at last.
In some places he draws the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
In argument
Similes are like songs in love:
They must describe; they nothing prove.
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
Soon their crude notions with each other fought;
The adverse sect denied what this had taught;
And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd,
Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.
The first the Retort Courteous; the second the Quip Modest; the third the Reply Churlish; the fourth the Reproof Valiant; the fifth the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh the Lie Direct.
