Quotes about arguments
19 real sentences about arguments, left by people who came before us, from 5th century BC to 1895, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.
Confucius 孔子
5th century BC · Lu, Spring and Autumn China
"The young are to be held in awe. How do we know that those to come will not be the equals of those now?"
子曰：「後生可畏，焉知來者之不如今也？」Analects, book 9 (Zihan)
Confucius 孔子
5th century BC · Lu, Spring and Autumn China
"The gentleman is in harmony with others without becoming the same as them; the small man becomes the same and is not in harmony."
子曰：「君子和而不同，小人同而不和。」Analects, book 13 (Zilu)
Aristotle Ἀριστοτέλης
c. 330 BC · ancient Greece
They love too much and hate too much, and everything else the same way; and they think they know everything and insist on it.
φιλοῦσι γὰρ ἄγαν καὶ μισοῦσιν ἄγαν καὶ τἆλλα πάντα ὁμοίως, καὶ εἰδέναι ἅπαντα οἴονται καὶ διισχυρίζονταιRhetoric, book 2, chapter 12, on the character of the young
Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus
c. AD 107 · Roman Empire
The chariot races were on, a kind of show that does not hold me in the least. Nothing new, nothing varied, nothing that it is not enough to have seen once. So I wonder all the more that so many thousands of grown men should be so childishly eager, again and again, to see horses running and men standing in chariots.
Circenses erant, quo genere spectaculi ne levissime quidem teneor. Nihil novum nihil varium, nihil quod non semel spectasse sufficiat. Quo magis miror tot milia virorum tam pueriliter identidem cupere currentes equos, insistentes curribus homines videre.Letters 9.6
Liu Yuxi 劉禹錫
c. 810 · Tang China · In his years of demotion
Since ancient times people have met autumn with sorrow at its loneliness. I say an autumn day is better than a spring morning. In the clear sky one crane climbs, parting the clouds, and carries my poem with it up into the blue.
自古逢秋悲寂寥，我言秋日勝春朝。
晴空一鶴排雲上，便引詩情到碧霄。"Autumn Song," the first poem, in the Complete Tang Poems
Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部
c. 1010 · Heian Japan
Sei Shonagon, now, was a person who put on a very knowing face. She made such a show of cleverness, scattering Chinese characters about, yet if you look closely there is still a great deal wanting.
清少納言こそ、したり顔にいみじうはべりける人。さばかりさかしだち、真名書きちらしてはべるほども、よく見れば、まだいと足らぬこと多かり。The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu
Yoshida Kenko 兼好
c. 1330 · late Kamakura Japan
Are we to look at blossoms only in full bloom, at the moon only when it is cloudless?
花は盛りに、月は隈なきをのみ見るものかは。Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), section 137
Yi Bangwon 李芳遠
1392 (recorded in a songbook of 1728) · Goryeo and Joseon Korea · Said to be the song that sounded out Jeong Mongju: give up failing Goryeo and join us
What does it matter this way, what does it matter that way? What does it matter if the arrowroot vines of Mansu Mountain twine together? Let us too twine together like them, and enjoy a hundred years.
이런들 엇더ᄒᆞ며 져런들 엇더ᄒᆞ료
萬壽山 드렁츩이 얼거진들 엇더ᄒᆞ리
우리도 이 ᄀᆞᆺ치 얼거져 百年ᄭᆞ지 누리리라"Hayeoga," in Cheonggu yeongeon (1728)
Jeong Mongju 鄭夢周
1392 (recorded in a songbook of 1728) · Goryeo Korea · Said to be his answer to Yi Bangwon's song. Soon afterwards he was killed on Seonjuk Bridge
Though this body die and die, die a hundred times over, though my white bones turn to dust and my soul be or not be, could my single red heart, turned towards my lord, ever change?
이 몸이 주거주거 一百番 고쳐 주거
白骨이 塵土ㅣ 되여 넉시라도 잇고 업고
님 向ᄒᆞᆫ 一片丹心이야 가싈 줄이 이시랴"Dansimga," in Cheonggu yeongeon (1728)
Sor Juana Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
late 17th century · Mexico City, New Spain
Foolish men, who accuse woman without reason, not seeing that you are the cause of the very thing you blame.
Hombres necios, que acusais A la mujer, sin razon, Sin ver que sois la ocasion De lo mismo que culpais
The redondillas "Foolish Men" (Hombres necios)
Abigail Adams
March 31, 1776 · Massachusetts, USA · On the new laws to be made after independence
I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.
Letter to her husband John Adams
John Adams
April 14, 1776 · Massachusetts, USA
As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh.
His reply to his wife Abigail
Abigail Adams
May 7, 1776 · Massachusetts, USA · On receiving her husband's reply
I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
A further letter to her husband John Adams
Mary Wollstonecraft
1792 · London, England · Answering Rousseau's remark that if women are educated like men, they will have less power over us
This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長
1790s · Edo Japan · He notes that this was what his own teacher always taught him
If a better idea comes to you later, never hold back just because it differs from your teacher's view.
後によき考への出で来たらんには、必ずしも師の説にたがふとて、な憚りそTamakatsuma, "On not being bound by one's teacher's views"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1841 · Concord, Massachusetts, USA
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
"Self-Reliance," in Essays: First Series
Walt Whitman
first published 1855, revised all his life · United States
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
"Song of Myself" 51, in Leaves of Grass
John Stuart Mill
1859 · London, England
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
On Liberty, chapter 2
Oscar Wilde
1895 · Ireland · Britain · A line spoken by Algernon in the comedy
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
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