Intellectual Disagreement Quotes

[David] Mamet's the writer I admire most but he's way off from when he tries to talk about what the moral appeal of liberal thought is. His heart is not in it.

Once again you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and as usual come to the wrong conclusion!

The religious quality of Marxism also explains a characteristic attitude of the orthodox Marxist toward opponents. To him, as to any believer in a Faith, the opponent is not merely in error but in sin. Dissent is disapproved of not only intellectually but also morally. There cannot be any excuse for it once the Message has been revealed.

Kant's position is extremely subtle - so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is.

When I think of the standing, the importance and the erudition of all these people who see nothing about racism in Heart of Darkness, I'm convinced that we must really be living in different worlds.

The French are pretty thin-skinned. The few times I mentioned a French writer in 'City Boy,' the relatives would ring up in high dudgeon. I once wrote a mocking review of Marguerite Duras in the 'New York Review of Books,' and good friends of mine in France got very angry.

It is well known that German intellectuals are reluctant to agree with French intellectuals and the French are reluctant to agree with the German.

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic

Professor Galbraith is horrified by the number of Americans who have bought cars with tail fins on them, and I am horrified by the number of Americans who take seriously the proposals of Mr. Galbraith.

I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

"Law professors were never like economics professors," a Harvard Law professor told me. "If you disagreed with someone, you didn't call him a fool."

Every great thinker is someone else's moron.

How can there be so vast a difference of opinion in an age so intelligent and educated as ours? Is half the world struck blind to-day, and is sight given to the other half alone? No, there is neither incurable blindness, nor is sight vouchsafed only to a few. The sole reason for the confusion is that men employ different standards in measuring the same thing, and for this reason find it impossible to understand each other.