Debates quotes:

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Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows. -- Mark McKinnon
I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility. -- Jim Lehrer
Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity. -- Eugene Fama
Debates must take place in an atmosphere of courtesy. -- John Allen Fraser
Debates conceal rather than reveal the truth. Truth is revealed in solitude. -- Leo Tolstoy
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a corrupt stranglehold on our democracy. -- Phil Donahue
The Commission on Presidential Debates must be replaced if we want to have a democracy in this country. -- John B. Anderson
Overly focused, it's far from the time to rest now. Debates growin bout who they think is the best now -- Drake
It's time to override this fraud being committed on the American voter of the two-party tyranny of this private corporation of the Commission on Presidential Debates. -- Jill Stein
The threshold by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In the words of the League of Women Voters, they are a fraud being perpetrated on the American public. -- Jill Stein
There are certainly major differences between Poland's policies and those of the old EU countries. Debates are going on in Brussels over a shared foreign policy and even a shared foreign minister. -- Lech Kaczynski
Debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates. It's pretty hard to be able to sit and lay out your ideas and your concepts with a one-minute response. -- Rick Perry
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. -- Michael Johns
Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts. -- Heinz R. Pagels
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny. -- John Stuart Mill
To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful. -- Mark McKinnon
There is nothing wrong with intellectual differences flowing from freedom of thought as long as such differences remain confined to intellectual debates. -- Pervez Musharraf
The world organization debates disarmament in one room and, in the next room, moves the knights and pawns that make national arms imperative. -- E. B. White
The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress. -- Hendrik Willem van Loon
I can't ever remember sitting around and saying, 'gosh let's hurry up and get these debates going, that'll win it for me.' Nope. -- George H. W. Bush
Some felt as if 'Charlie Hebdo' was obsessed with its 'Screw Allah' stance. It's a sort of provocation that caused a lot of debates. -- Patrick Chappatte
I think a lot of moral debates are not over what is the basis of justice, but who gets a ticket to play in the game. -- Steven Pinker
Just as I wouldn't expect a gynecologist to have a debate with somebody who believes in the Stork-theory of reproduction, I won't do debates with Young Earth creationists. -- Richard Dawkins
I'm pretty good at sticking to what I know. You don't see me social commentating on health-care or presidential debates. I talk about what I know because I'm petrified of being wrong. -- Gary Vaynerchuk
The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution. -- Steven Pinker
At the height of the Cold War, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviets and their allies and satellites did not shirk human rights debates with the West. They had their arguments ready. -- Elliott Abrams
Presidential primary debates are an important part of our political process. But the media has wrested complete control from the parties and candidates over everything, including the number, the format, the qualifications, and the moderators. And they've become a circus. -- Mark McKinnon
With increasing fervor since the 1980s, sustainability has been the watchword of scientists, environmental activists, and indeed all those concerned about the complex, fragile systems on the sphere we inhabit. It has shaped debates about business, design, and our lifestyles. -- Jamais Cascio
Such an emphasis on the immanence of God as Creator in, with, and under the natural processes of the world unveiled by the sciences is certainly in accord with all that the sciences have revealed since those debates of the nineteenth century. -- Arthur Peacocke
Orphan Black' allows for people to have debates and theories and allegiances to different characters - to trust characters and hate other characters - but it doesn't tell you who is good or bad or right or wrong. That's the most exciting storytelling, in my book. -- Tatiana Maslany
It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times. The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach. -- Pratibha Patil
For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs. -- Ai Weiwei
In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order. -- Jonathan Sacks
When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you've had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you're pretty polished. -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
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. -- Richard Dawkins
When I start getting embroiled in heated debates and feeling stressed, I just turn everything off and disconnect from the world. I simply tell my colleagues and friends that I am not well and need to cancel all meetings for a day or more. I take it easy - go for a long hike, take a vacation somewhere, or just stay at home and read. -- Vivek Wadhwa
I am for secret, dark debates. -- Jean-Claude Juncker
I've been very successful at negotiating debates. -- Donald Trump
Polemical debates happen all the time in France. -- Michel Houellebecq
Dialogue means debates and everyone's point of view. -- Kevin Hart
But I do think its necessary to have debates. -- Geraldine Ferraro
I've always been very wary of debates involving women. -- Tony Abbott
If we're going to have debates, let's have real debates. -- Jim Lehrer
The purpose of debates is to explore issues, not end them. -- David Gemmell
I cannot believe that [Donald Trump] is actually in the debates. -- Bill Burr
Al Gore adopted three utterly different personas in three national presidential debates. -- Rich Lowry
In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest. -- William Penn
Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates. -- Richie Sambora
I started working at Focus on the Family doing debates and media and cultural studies. -- John Eldredge
I think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates. -- Juan Cole
In my downtime, for fun, I engage in philosophical internet debates. Yeah, I'm that guy. -- Scott Clifton
Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to wellbeing. -- Diane Abbott
I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers at Democratic debates. I never used marijuana. Sorry! -- Joe Lieberman
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My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates. -- Dennis Kucinich
I negotiated the proper timing and other things having to do with one of our other debates. -- Donald Trump
If Allah wants for a people ill, he gives them debates and takes away from them actions. -- Umar
Trees are right at the heart of all the necessary debates: ecological, social, economic, political, moral, religious. -- Colin Tudge
That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems. -- Georg Brandes
I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me. -- Edward Snowden
Until the late-nineteenth-century the House of Commons maintained a formal ban on the reporting of its debates. -- Clive Ponting
Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts. -- Heinz R. Pagels
There's no question that many factors contribute to voters' perceptions about debates and who wins and who loses. -- Mark McKinnon
I got to watch some of Hillary Clinton's debates against Barack Obama. She treated him with terrible disrespect. -- Donald Trump
In my view, republican primary debates ought to be moderated by people who would vote in a primary. -- Ted Cruz
It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances. -- George H. W. Bush
Traditionally vice presidential debates don't move the needle one way or the other. They have largely been irrelevant and inconsequential. -- Donald Trump
During the Cold War, America took sides not only in disputes between Arab countries, but also in debates within them. -- Stephen Kinzer
I stated at Justice [John] Roberts' hearing, the court's injected itself into many of the political debates of our day. -- Sam Brownback
Moreover, environmental health at the local level has become narrowly focused, very much defined around regulations and the attendant regulatory debates. -- Samuel Wilson
Build an "inclusive narrative" that goes beyond race, class, religion, etc., so that all may participate in the "the great debates". -- Neil Postman
In his early days at University, he'd been too green to realize winning debates, even private ones, would lose him friends. -- T. Baggins
I had the good fortune to spend hours with my parents around the dinner table having debates on politics and economics. -- Dambisa Moyo
I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious ... I am for secret, dark debates -- Jean-Claude Juncker
I don't mind the debates, they're good for America, but we shouldn't be out there attacking each other all the time. -- William J. Clinton
I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating it. Maybe we did, but I don't remember. -- George W. Bush
The question is whether we're ready to undertake responsibility for overcoming the crisis or will again sink in debates, mutual recriminations and half-steps -- Yevgeny Primakov
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I think it's important that campaigns be aired all the way through, that people aren't voting three weeks before, before debates are held. -- Judy Woodruff
The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer. -- David Antin
I think three debates is good. I think it should be on a night where viewers are going to be able to watch. -- Donald Trump
Energy has become a national security issue and as technology continues to improve, there will be more debates like the one on Keystone. -- Ed Royce
If Abe Lincoln took part in the Republican debates, he would look out of place with his intelligence, compassion and gaping head wound. -- Dana Gould
If I can get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states and be allowed into the debates, I'd not only run, I'd win. -- Jesse Ventura
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. -- Russell T Davies
These esoteric, intellectual debates-I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation, -- Chris Christie
There needs to be debates, like we're going through. There needs to be townhall meetings. There needs to be travel. This is a huge country. -- George W. Bush
I spent four and a half hours debating Donald Trump in three debates, which I think should put to rest any questions about my stamina. -- Hillary Clinton
The most startling aspect of the nutrition situation in India is that it is not much of an issue in public debates and electoral politics. -- Jean Dreze
But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these debates. -- Robert B. Laughlin
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? -- Ralph Nader
If we're not in the debates there will be no real discussion of climate change, because Hillary Clinton's policy does not begin to address the threat. -- Jill Stein
[John Adams] is impressed with [Tomas] Jefferson's learning, but noted his silence during the debates in the Congress: "I never heard him utter three Sentences together." -- Gordon S. Wood
Economists want their discipline to be a science, and they have nailed down a few precepts, but many of their debates are still clouded by ideology. -- Nathan Myhrvold
Politics has become a game of meaningless, mindless battles, conducted by unscrupulous methods and people, designed to transform even the most serious policy debates into sport. -- Al Gore
I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing. -- James L. Buckley
I've been doing these conventions for 20 years, and we used to at least have debates about issues. Nothing is happening basically at this convention, other than speeches. -- Susan Estrich
I have many debates now with friends on the changes, and the continuing confusion over bringing up your children, instilling values, letting them make the right choices. -- Olivia Williams
I can tell you is all nine of the people here [ on debates] would make an infinitely better commander in chief than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. -- Ted Cruz
Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. -- Barack Obama
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Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low." -- Aldrich Ames
Medicare debates in Congress should result in better Medicare benefits for all our nation's seniors. We're not asking for special treatment for rural America, just a fair deal. -- Bennie Thompson
There are plenty of dates that are dead nights that you could do. There are plenty evenings that are dead nights that you could have the debates in. -- Donald Trump
Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low. -- Aldrich Ames
The American people aren't focused on the debates of the past. They're focused on their future. They're focused on the challenges that we're facing at home and abroad. -- Mike Pence
I don't think [Donald] Trump was playing rope-a-dope. He probably said, "Look, I've done these. How many debates did we do in the primaries? I know what's happening." -- Rush Limbaugh
If you're kept off the debates, you can't reach more two percent of people even if you campaign every state and fill the big conventions like Madison Square Garden. -- Ralph Nader
I saw, he was in a different league on a different planet. Everybody says we need substance in these debates, you've got it. You've got it from [Ted] Cruz. -- Rush Limbaugh
The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process. -- Walter Cronkite
I saw, he was in a different league on a different planet. Everybody says we need substance in these debates, you've got it. You've got it from [Ted] Cruz. -- Rush Limbaugh
We encounter very healthy boardroom debates and pretty diverse views, so we have always had the benefit of diversity of opinion and expression before we take some important calls. -- Uday Kotak
I don't ever participate in debates about the existence or nonexistence of God because I can't imagine why anyone would be persuaded one way or the other by such things. -- Susan Jacoby
There are 435 members of Congress. There's one 'Morning Joe' show. Hopefully, we can keep hammering the argument that you can disagree with other people and have debates but remain civil. -- Joe Scarborough
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. -- Ray Kurzweil
What intrigued me most was not the technology as such but the questions about the human goods, the fundamental human values and virtues that are raised by debates over biotechnology. -- Michael Sandel
Keynes vs Hayek? Friedman vs Krugman? Those are the wrong intellectual debates. Its you vs. Tony Hayward, BP CEO, You vs. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO. And you are losing ... -- Barry Ritholtz
Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence. -- Maajid Nawaz
We talked about politics constantly in my family growing up in North Carolina. There were always debates. Being of Greek background, it's in our blood to drink coffee and talk politics. -- Zach Galifianakis
When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. -- Freeman Dyson

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