Benjamin Watson Quotes

Nothing will ensure war more certainly or entrench rivalries more seriously than for or against thinking!

It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.

Divisiveness is the only thing that sells today. Comity dies not sell. Civility does not sell.

My concern is that contention is becoming accepted as a way of life.

There's a certain group of people who are always going to dislike me and disagree with whatever I say.

Divisiveness is not good for the people.

Our citizens never hesitate to take sides against one another, whether it's Democrats versus Republicans, Coke drinkers opposed to Pepsi enthusiasts or Yankee loyalists against Red Sox aficionados.

Each side had its uninformed fanatics. And each side had political leaders who fanned the flames with their rhetoric.

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

Our friend, Mr Hume, made a most violent speech at a dinner … last week. He called Sir R. Peel and some other Tories "the cloven foot," which I think rather strong. I think that great violence and striving such a pity, on both sides … They irritate one another so uselessly by calling one another fools, blockheads, liars, and so forth for no purpose. I think violence so bad in everything.

We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions.

You will find that hate can unify people more quickly and more fervently than devotion ever could.

Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

Any time the country is split 50/50, the leader is wrong.

I think America has always been polarized.

Conflict grows out of ignorance and suspicion.

The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.

Races and nations are thus ever ready to believe the worst of one another.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

When people tap into this politics of resentment, it usually ends ugly.

All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black.

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

The loudest voices we hear are those who advocate conflict, divisiveness.

I don't like to get involved in any bashing at all.

Politics has got too personal, too nasty, in Britain, as it has in America.