Ontological Argument Quotes

#1. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument. #Quote by Albert Camus

#2. If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument. Galileo, who held a scientific truth of great importance, abjured it with the greatest ease as soon as it endangered his life. In a certain sense, he did right. #Quote by Albert Camus

#3. We can formulate Plantinga's version of the ontological argument as follows: 1) It is possible that a maximally great being exists. 2) If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3) If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 4) If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5) If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists. 6) Therefore, a maximally great being exists. #Quote by William Lane Craig

#4. We don't argue if drug companies create drugs that can cure humans and charge lots of money for them, even though we all have these diseases. It will be pretty hard to make a different argument for genes. #Quote by Leroy Hood

#5. Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment. #Quote by Eric Alterman

#6. Gray means being open-minded. I always look at the world that way; I'm able to hear both sides of an argument. I don't listen to opera, but I don't think it's good or bad; it's just its own thing. I can completely appreciate it. #Quote by Graham Elliot

#7. I was an adult before I began to learn that there is a difference between a conversation and an argument. #Quote by Marion Dane Bauer

#8. The Spirit never makes men the instruments of converting others until they feel that they cannot do it themselves; that their skill in argument, in persuasion, in management, avails nothing. #Quote by Charles Hodge

#9. What's all this love of arguing? No one ever convinces anyone else. #Quote by Leo Tolstoy

#10. Debate is the death of conversation. #Quote by Emil Ludwig

#11. I wish I were younger. What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders. #Quote by C.S. Lewis

#12. While the gun lobby sought to close the courthouse door to all legitimate claims, Zack and other clever lawyers often artfully dodge these efforts with carefully crafted pleadings and appropriate argument, successfully litigating their claims, and holding gun companies responsible. #Quote by Mark M. Bello

#13. Nothing is wrong in taking medicine when you're sick, but something is wrong if It is been taking by you to cure the headache of another. #Quote by Bamigboye Olurotimi

#14. The poverty argument is especially weak. In the 1950s, when segregation was legal, overt racism was rampant, and black poverty was much higher than today, black crime rates were lower and blacks comprised a smaller percentage of the prison population. And then there is the experience of other groups who endured rampant poverty, racial discrimination, and high unemployment without becoming overrepresented in the criminal justice system. #Quote by Jason L. Riley

#15. Unhappy, let alone angry, religious people provide more persuasive arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of atheists. #Quote by Dennis Prager

#16. If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the mass to the height of your argument. #Quote by George Henry Lewes

#17. In his reflections on rebellion, Albert Camus argues that one cannot kill unless one is prepared to die.11 But that argument does not seem to apply to soldiers in battle, where the whole point is to kill while avoiding getting killed. And yet there is a wider sense in which Camus is right. Just #Quote by Michael Walzer

#18. Good morning, Mr. Herbert!" I would say.
The point is debatable," he might respond.
Or, on another day: "Good morning, Mr. Herbert!"
"I will half allow it."
Or: "Good morning, Mr. Herbert!"
"I fail to see your argument."
Or: "Good morning, Mr. Herbert!"
"I find myself unequal to the occasion."
Or, my favorite ever: "Good morning, Mr. Herbert!"
"Oh, you're a satirist now, are you? #Quote by Elizabeth Gilbert

#19. The utilitarian argument against fiestas, parades, carnivals, and general public merriment is that they produce nothing. But they do: they produce society. They renew the reasons why we might want to belong and the feeling that we do. #Quote by Rebecca Solnit

#20. Kuhnen and Brian Knutson have found that men who are shown erotic pictures just before they gamble take more risks than those shown neutral images like desks and chairs. This is because anticipating rewards - any rewards, whether or not related to the subject at hand - excites our dopamine-driven reward networks and makes us act more rashly. (This may be the single best argument yet for banning pornography from workplaces.) #Quote by Susan Cain

#21. When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks that this thing will win arguments and straighten people out. #Quote by Bill Cosby

#22. The argument from design, therefore, can be sustained only with the help of a supposedly a priori double-barrelled principle, that mental order (at least in a god) is self-explanatory, but that all material order not only is not self-explanatory, but is positively improbable and in need of further explanation...this double-barrelled principle is recognizable as the core of the cosmological argument...The argument will not take us even as far as Kant seems to allow without borrowing the a priori thesis that there is a vicious metaphysical contingency in all natural things, and, in contrast with this, the 'transcendental' concept of a god who is self-explanatory and necessarily existent. It is only with the help of these borrowings that the design argument can introduce the required asymmetry, that any natural explanation uses data which call for further explanation, but that the theistic explanation terminates the regress. Without this asymmetry, the design argument cannot show that there is any need to go beyond the sort of hypothesis that Hume foreshadowed and that Wallace and Darwin supplied... The dependence of the argument for design on the ideas that are the core of the cosmological one is greater than Kant realized. #Quote by John Leslie Mackie

#23. The claim that there cannot be an infinite regress of contingent ontological causes raises a truly difficult challenge to pure materialism; but to imagine that it can be extended to undermine the claim that there must be an absolute ontological cause is to fall prey to an obvious category error. #Quote by David Bentley Hart

#24. There are two sides to any argument. Does one side always have all the answers? Give it some thought. #Quote by Alder

#25. Painting is the same kind of problem as unfolding a long, sustained interlocked argument ... It is a proposition commanded by a single unity of conception. #Quote by Winston Churchill

#26. He [Percy] pleaded with those sea-green eyes, like a cute baby seal that needed help. Piper wondered how Annabeth ever won an argument with this guy. #Quote by Rick Riordan

#27. The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific #Quote by Claude C. Hopkins

#28. In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. #Quote by H. G. Bissinger

#29. The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. A dog's tail wags to communicate. You can't make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their arguments. #Quote by Jonathan Haidt

#30. Last month I was banging on about how books were better than anything - -how just about any decent book you picked would beat up anything else, any film or painting or piece of music, you cared to match it up with. Anyway, like most theories advanced in this column, it turned out to be utter rubbish. I went to a couple of terrific exhibitions at the Royal Academy (and that's a hole in my argument right there - one book might beat up one painting, but what chance has one book, or even four books, got against the collected works of Guston and Vuillard?) ... #Quote by Nick Hornby

#31. A long-running argument exists over whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. In my view, they certainly do. #Quote by Jay Parini

#32. Where thou perceivest knowledge, bend the ear of attention and respect; But yield not further to the teaching, than as thy mind is warranted by reasons. Better is an obstinant disputant, that yieldeth inch by inch, Than the shallow traitor to himself, who surrendereth to half an argument. #Quote by Charles Caleb Colton

#33. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. Charles Darwin #Quote by Charles Darwin

#34. The main argument is that capitalism is constituted by a varied of different practices, and so challenging capitalism needs to be about a variety of struggles. I draw on the important work of J.K. Gibson-Graham, who argues that we should model anti-capitalist struggle on feminist struggles. #Quote by Cynthia Kauffman

#35. Intelligence is measured by a person's ability to see validity within both sides of contradicting arguments. #Quote by F Scott Fitzgerald

#36. You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense ... Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world. #Quote by Joseph Conrad

#37. One of the recent arguments from design, that based on the so-called fine-tuning life of some fundamental physical constants, founders on the following objections: an extremely small prior probability merited by the God of theism in light – if that is the right word – of the Problem of Evil; the fact that it is not unreasonable to place a substantial probability on the hypothesis that a future theory will fix those values; and the sheer incoherence of computations of the 'chances' of fine-tuning were there no fine-tuner. #Quote by Colin Howson

#38. I cannot believe you formed this plan," Clove said. "No one else would think of this but you."
"That's true; I am very clever!" Ella wriggled next to Clove, peering.
"That is the opposite of what I meant."
Ella sighed. "Clove, please recognize the negative energy you are bringing into this space."
"WE'RE IN A POTATO CART!"
Ella shushed her. "I do everything for a reason. Just because you do not know that reason, does not make it silly."
"Sometimes the reason is that you make bad choices," Clove muttered. #Quote by Lauren James

#39. Some psychologists and philosophers are distrustful of the concept of self. They argue against it because they do not like separating man from the continuum with animals, and they believe the concept of the self gets in the way of scientific experimentation. But rejecting the concept of "self" as "unscientific" because it cannot be reduced to mathematical equations is roughly the same as the argument two and three decades ago that Freud's theories and the concept of "unconscious" motivation were "unscientific." It is a defensive and dogmatic science - and therefore not true science - which uses a particular scientific method as a Procrustean bed and rejects all forms of human experience which don't fit. #Quote by Rollo May

#40. On the revelation that there are no gods or afterlife:-

"I do not 'like' the truth any more than you Avil, or anyone. I wrestled with it for a long time, for a while I was distraught, desperate to find that my research had been wrong - the more I searched, the deeper I delved the more clear it became that the truth was what it is. After much reflection, I came to the conclusion that though accepting the truth is hard, moving on from that, it becomes clear that the important thing is to make the world we live in a better place. We get one life, it's our duty to make the most of it."

~Brael Truthseeker of House Krazic
Deathsworn Arc 2 : The Verkreath Horror #Quote by Martyn Stanley

#41. The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb. #Quote by Benjamin Constant

#42. The sum total or Ishwara may be said to be All-good, Almighty, and Omniscient. These are obvious qualities, and need no argument to prove, from the very fact of totality. #Quote by Swami Vivekananda

#43. Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision-reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world.
This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out-he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next.
It was his decision, one way or another. But if I'd been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out.
There were two important reasons for him to leave-our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument.
But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more.
I didn't think he could survive another deployment.
"I'll support you whatever you decide," I told him. "I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is…I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those I serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon."
For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our so #Quote by Taya Kyle

#44. There's an argument that celebrities stop growing mentally the moment they reach stardom and then they just - everything goes away. I think that's true. #Quote by Greg Gutfeld

#45. You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things."
Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. "You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?"
"Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand. #Quote by Catherynne M Valente

#46. It is of first-rate importance to notice from the start that stupidity is not the same thing, or the same sort of thing, as ignorance. There is no incompatibility between being well-informed and being silly, and a person who has a good nose for arguments or jokes may have a bad head for facts. #Quote by Gilbert Ryle

#47. That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He #Quote by Iain M. Banks

#48. Every self is an argument trying to prove its identity #Quote by Kevin Kelly

#49. Love has been the ontological pattern for me. And also the withholding pattern. #Quote by Masha Tupitsyn