A Quote by Johann Lamont

The test is can you do something, rather than have a theoretical argument - can you make a difference?

Johann Lamont

Quote Topics

Argument Difference Make Make A Difference Rather Something Test Than Theoretical You Make A Difference

Quote Author

Johann Lamont
Scottish - Politician
Born: July 11, 1957

Working in theoretical systems can take away the juice. It can also be very beautiful, but when you're trying to satisfy a theoretical principle rather than a sonic reality, then it can become dry.

Pauline Oliveros

There's always a tension in my world between the pragmatic and the practical and the theoretical. I have a very theoretical turn of mind, but I also like to test things in place.

Michael Pollan

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.

Karl Popper

The only driver stronger than an economic argument to do something is the war argument, the I-don't-want-to-die argument.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.

Po Bronson

Ultimately, the current argument is "not having net neutrality will hurt innovation," and you can make that argument, but I would rather make the public good argument, which is not just about innovation or nurturing new companies that will add to the nation's GDP, it's actually about creating a democratic public sphere.

Astra Taylor

Try to find someone with a sense of humor. That's an important thing to have because when you get into an argument, one of the best ways to diffuse it is to be funny. You don't want to hide away from a point, because some points are serious, but you'd rather have a discussion that was a discussion, rather than an argument.

Ed Sheeran

You can make a very good argument that society would be much worse off if you let 10 rapists and murderers free rather than put one poor, wrongly accused accountant in prison. And so my only point on that is that it should open up an argument. It should not sort of settle one, because nobody disagrees with it.

Jonah Goldberg

Every time we share something rather than own it ourselves, we reduce the stress on the planet. That could make the critical difference as the global population continues to grow.

Lisa Gansky

Carbon-free energy is simply something we have to do. The time for talk is past. If we turn around net carbon emissions by 2020 rather than 2040, we get another 2° of fever rather than 3° - and that's a big difference.

William H. Calvin

Theoretically, you can make, obviously, a powerful argument that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination are the primary cause for all those gaps. That those were wrongs done to the black community as a whole, and black families specifically, and that in order to close that gap, a society has a moral obligation to make a large, aggressive investment, even if it's not in the form of individual reparations checks, but in the form of a Marshall Plan, in order to close those gaps. It is easy to make that theoretical argument.

Barack Obama

I believe it's true that one person can make a difference. But how much more difference 100 people make, or rather 99.

Robert Hayden

We have an industrial base - one that, if made to take orders rather than being allowed in the vacuum of leadership to create them, if enabled by the elimination of cost-plus contracting to produce and achieve rather than waste and receive, could make something worth the cost rather than making work that costs us our dreams.

Rick Tumlinson

I don't really have those kinds of intentions when I write a scene. I try to follow the internal logic of the fiction, rather than make an argument or an assertion.

Rachel Kushner

Any work of science, no matter what its point of departure, cannot become fully convincing until it crosses the boundary between the theoretical and the experimental: Experimentation must give way to argument, and argument must have recourse to experimentation.