“Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.”

—  Gertrude Stein

"Form and Intelligibility," from The Radcliffe Manuscripts (1949); written in 1895 as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it." by Gertrude Stein?
Gertrude Stein photo
Gertrude Stein160
American art collector and experimental writer of novels, p… 1874–1946

Related quotes

“Help me, I can’t breathe, your ego is pushing all the air out of the room.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“[Relativist] Rel. There is a well-known proposition of Euclid which states that "Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side." Can either of you tell me whether nowadays there is good reason to believe that this proposition is true?
[Pure Mathematician] Math. For my part, I am quite unable to say whether the proposition is true or not. I can deduce it by trustworthy reasoning from certain other propositions or axioms, which are supposed to be still more elementary. If these axioms are true, the proposition is true; if the axioms are not true, the proposition is not true universally. Whether the axioms are true or not I cannot say, and it is outside my province to consider.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Charles Krauthammer photo

“I believe in what I believe, and I think after all these years I've heard a lot of arguments, and I'm convinced by the superiority of the arguments that are made on the conservative side. I think that's a better way to run a society.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

NewsBusters interview 18 September 2012
2010s, 2012

Francis Escudero photo

“I respect the decision of the Court as everyone else should, whether they agree with or not. Respect for the rule of law demands nothing less. I don't think the statements of President (Rodrigo) Duterte has anything to do with it as I believe in the independence of the Court. I cannot comment on the prosecution given that I am not too learned about the day to day arguments both sides made before the Court.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2016, July 20). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10154259973445610/ <br class="br">2016, Facebook

Alfred Jules Ayer photo

“"I exist" does not follow from "there is a thought now." The fact that a thought occurs at a given moment does not entail that any other thought has occurred at any other moment, still less that there has occurred a series of thoughts sufficient to constitute a single self. As Hume conclusively showed, no one event intrinsically points to any other. We infer the existence of events which we are not actually observing, with the help of general principle. But these principles must be obtained inductively. By mere deduction from what is immediately given we cannot advance a single step beyond. And, consequently, any attempt to base a deductive system on propositions which describe what is immediately given is bound to be a failure.”

Alfred Jules Ayer book Language, Truth, and Logic

Source: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), p. 47.

Gillian Flynn photo

“I was never really on my side in any argument. I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phraseSometimes women do.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

“I never seem to have excuses good enough to not to create every day. I cannot help it, creating is like breathing for me, involuntary, necessary, and the fuller I do it, the more alive I feel.”

Marjo-Riikka Makela (1977) Finnish actress

Los Angeles lecture on being an artist at Chekhov Studio International while teaching a workshop with Matthew Davis January 11th & 12th 2014

Richard Cobden photo

“I know that there are many heads which cannot comprehend and master a proposition in political economy. I believe that study is the highest exercise of the human mind.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/27/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (27 February 1846). <br class="br">1840s

“God, to breathe. Air. You don’t know what it means until you cannot take a breath”

Alice Borchardt book The Dragon Queen

The Dragon Queen

Related topics