“I've found during my almost twenty years in Washington that the tendency to personalize differences has grown to be an accepted way of doing business. One need not do the hard work of dissecting an argument. One need only attack and thus discredit the person making the argument. Though the matter being debated is not effectively resolved, the debate is reduced to unilateral pronouncements and glib but quotable cliches.”

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

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 "I've found during my almost twenty years in Washington that the tendency to personalize differences has grown to be an …" by Clarence Thomas?
Clarence Thomas photo
Clarence Thomas 100
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1948

Related quotes

Wang Qishan photo

“What we need to do is make the pie bigger while looking for ways to share it in a more equitable way. The last thing we should do is to stop making the pie and just engage in a futile debate on how to divide it. Shifting blame for one’s own problems onto others will not resolve the problems.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "China’s Vice President Decries Technological Hegemony" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-vice-president-urges-governments-to-address-their-domestic-problems-11548258999 (23 January 2019)

Koenraad Elst photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo
Barack Obama photo

“The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2010, State Of The Union (January 2010)

Bertrand Russell photo
Charles Sumner photo

“The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be senators.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

As quoted in "First African American Senator" http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/First_African_American_Senator.htm, United States Senate

Husayn ibn Ali photo

“Two signs of learned person are: acceptance of other people's criticism, and being knowledgeable about the angles and dimensions of rhetoric and debate.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 252
Regarding Wisdom

Fulton J. Sheen photo

“The only argument the world will listen to now is the argument of personal holiness. It has heard all the rest and rejected them.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Retreat to Priests, Washington, D.C., p. 19, quoted in Bernard Hayes, C.R., To Live as Jesus Did (Locust Valley, N.Y.: Living Flame Press, 1981), p. 108. There is no book by Sheen with the title Retreat to Priests. Hayes is presumably quoting from a transcription of Sheen's 1974 retreat for priests of the Washington diocese. This was recorded on reel-to-reel tape and later issued in nine 60-minute tapes under the title Renewal and Reconciliation.

Related topics