Top 403 Debates Quotes & Sayings

Polemical debates happen all the time in France.

I don't do formal debates, because formal debates where you have two people up on a stage in equal status, and each of them is given 20 minutes to give their point of view, and then 10 minutes for a rebuttal, or whatever, that creates the illusion that you really do have here two equal points of view of equal scientific standing.

We will not put a lid on opinions. On the contrary, it is more important than ever that political debates are open and free, even on the most difficult issues. Especially on the most difficult issues. The task is to encourage controversial debates in a form that strengthens democracy.

I was a flamboyant girl who participated in debates and all.

Having been brought up among the biologists and having followed various debates about ways to improve the human template and other debates about the true nature of our nature, I began seriously to wonder: What if? We hold in our hands a tool that is more powerful - for good or ill - than any we have wielded before.

If we're going to have debates, let's have real debates.

I am for secret, dark debates.

The world of TV debates is antiquated. What looked smart and modern in 1960, with Kennedy versus Nixon, looks quaint and over-rehearsed between Obama and Romney. We need a new format; even if we have the same moderators and candidates, there needs to be a more nuanced way for audiences to connect with and shape presidential debates.

I've always been very wary of debates involving women.

In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.

Debates must take place in an atmosphere of courtesy.

I think three debates [primary debates] is the right number. I think that, uh, they'll be extremely well watched. There are those who will say it will be one of the highest-rated shows in television history, if not the highest.

The purpose of debates is to explore issues, not end them.

That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.

The Commission on Presidential Debates must be replaced if we want to have a democracy in this country.

Because if you look at the debates now, and I have answered it except for 90 seconds by and large it's been viewed as every debate I have had I have been among the best people. And in some cases people argue the best person in those debates. I have been asked questions you never could have anticipated.

I play piano, a little Gershwin, before debates.

The government takes the opposition day debates incredibly seriously.

Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows.

I love having debates with people when they are debates but some people, you just can't. Some people shouldn't be given the oxygen.

the word 'justification' has itself had a chequered career over the course of many centuries of debate. As the major historian of the doctrine has noted, the word has long since ceased to mean, in ecclesial debates, what it meant for Paul himself - which is confusing, since the debates have gone on referring to Paul as though he was in fact talking about what they want to talk about. It is as though the greengrocer treated you to a long discussion of how onions are grown, and how best to cook with them, when what you had asked was how much he would charge for three of them.

I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers at Democratic debates. I never used marijuana. Sorry!

These are party-sanctioned debates. This is a presidential election, you show up at the debates. These are the rules. We have a series of unwritten rules of how campaigns are run, and everybody has followed those rules consistently over the decades. And no one has really even seriously thought about breaking them.

The presidential and vice-presidential debates are those rare moments when people come together, but to even call them debates is a stretch because they're played by such negotiated rules, and they're so over-rehearsed.

As an undergraduate at Stanford, I started 'The Stanford Review,' which ended up being very engaged in the hot debates of the time: campus speech codes, questions about diversity on campus, all sorts of debates like that.

In 2000 the majority of people wanted me and Buchanan on the debates in two thousand. And me on the debates in 2004. have there been any polls?

I've been very successful at negotiating debates.

To be sure, debates will linger about whether Medicare is too large or too small. Debates remain about the allocation of Medicare dollars. But December 8, 2003, demonstrated that there is no debate about this most fundamental fact: Medicare must survive.

The main influence on voters should be a series of robust debates among the candidates. It's a free country, so this is a tough problem to solve, but I'd love to see an election season with zero political ads, and all voters had to decide based on watching four national debates over the two months leading to election day.

I don't mind the debates, they're good for America, but we shouldn't be out there attacking each other all the time.

When Wikileaks comes out, which I have nothing to do with, they're giving classified information. They're giving information about Hillary [Clinton] cheating on the debates. No one mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Seriously, can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair, ok?

When we cracked the genetic DNA code, opened the big Pandora's box, and it really did become possible to produce chimeras, my ears shot up. Having been brought up among the biologists and having followed various debates about ways to improve the human template and other debates about the true nature of our nature, I began seriously to wonder: What if? We hold in our hands a tool that is more powerful - for good or ill - than any we have wielded before.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is a corrupt stranglehold on our democracy.

Debates, I hate.

No one has debates on Twitter.

I started working at Focus on the Family doing debates and media and cultural studies.

The real dynamic is that when Greens are in the debates, Conservatives don't do as well.

I cannot believe that [Donald Trump] is actually in the debates.

In my downtime, for fun, I engage in philosophical internet debates. Yeah, I'm that guy.

I've watched presidential debates since I was a teen, and I love it.

Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful.

The ethical debates are like stones in a stream. The water runs around them. You haven't seen any biological technologies held up for one week by any of these debates.

If we don't have a responsive democracy, all the debates about charter schools, and fracking, and high-stakes testing, and the militarization of police forces - all of which are issues I care about – they aren't real debates.

Throughout chess history, great debates have raged about the pros and cons of hanging pawns. The debates are nonsense; the answer is cut and dried. If the pawns can be attacked and forced to move forward, they are weak. If they can be defended and remain where they are, they are strong.

But I do think its necessary to have debates.

Mexico isn't a country of routine debates among presidential candidates.

I like to think I've changed the centre of gravity on lots of national debates.

With the presidential debates right around the corner, John Kerry is going to play Mitt Romney to help the President prepare for the debates. That's kind of a stretch; a rich white guy from Massachusetts playing a rich white guy from Massachusetts.

Bret Baier is a hard-news guy. He does the debates. He's not biased.

Dialogue means debates and everyone's point of view.

I like to hear conversations that are debates.

Debates are boring.

I can't wait for the Republican debates to start and there's literally 65 guys on one stage.

I think it's one of the challenges of modern politics, which is, how do you communicate who the candidate is, and what they really believe, in the short time period you have? And for me, the best opportunity was the debates, and I think I was in real trouble before the debates, and I think the debates helped me a lot.

I don`t control the schedule of the networks. We have three of our debates that are on network television, and those are on Saturday nights. We have three other debates that are during the week. And unfortunately, broadcast network programming is less flexible than cable network programming.

Republican presidential debates have become contests of who can terrify viewers the most.

People's minds are polluted by these dark pictures of the future from Hollywood: "The Terminator," the Skynet, "The Matrix." It's world where there's no room for humans, or they have to fight against the machines. I think it's just a way, way, way, way in the future. Is it going to happen? I don't know. For me, these debates are not similar, but they resemble debates about how the sun will turn into a supernova in 4 to 5 billion years. Frankly, I don't care.

The government's intention is to function, to have debates in Parliament, and to work in the interest of the people.