“Fools! Do you argue, that things ancient ought, on that account, to be true and noble!”
As quoted in Bharathiar's 125th anniversary tribute "The People's Poet" by N. Nandhivarman in TamilSydney (7 January 2008) http://www.sangam.org/2008/01/Bharathiar.php?uid=2727
Context: Fools! Do you argue, that things ancient ought, on that account, to be true and noble! Fallacies and Falsehoods there were from time immemorial, and dare you argue that because these are ancient these should prevail?
In ancient times, do you think that there was not the ignorant, and the shallow minded? And why after all should you embrace so fondly a carcass of dead thoughts. Live in the present and shape the future, do not be casting lingering looks to the distant past for the past has passed away, never again to return.
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Subramanya Bharathi 7
Tamil poet 1882–1921Related quotes

Final Speech at the Trial of Warren Hastings, 28 May 1794; in The Works of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, vol. 8 (1877) 5th edition, p. 51
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)
Context: On one side, your lordships have the prisoner declaring that the people have no laws, no rights, no usages, no distinctions of rank, no sense of honor, no property; in short that they are nothing but a herd of slaves to be governed by the arbitrary will of a master. On the other side, we assert that the direct contrary of this is true. And to prove our assertion we have referred you to the institutes of Ghinges Khân and of Tamerlane: we have referred you to the Mahomedan law, which is binding upon all, from the crowned head to the meanest subject; a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned, and most enlightened jurisprudence that perhaps ever existed in the world. We have shown you, that if these parties are to be compared together, it is not the rights of the people which are nothing, but rather the rights of the sovereign which are so. The rights of the people are every thing, as they ought to be in the true and natural order of things.
“I argue with lots of things, but I do not argue with my ears.”
Interview with rockcritics.com http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/davemarsh/01.html
“Poets: Old, New, and Aging”, p. 44
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

The Longest Time.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)