"Argument is always a little dangerous. It often leads to coolness and misunderstandings. You may gain your argument and lose your friend, which is probably a bad bargain. If you must argue, admit all you can, but try to show that some point has been overlooked. Very few people know when they have had the worst of an argument, and if they do, they do not like it. Moreover, if they know they are beaten, it does not follow that they are convinced. Indeed it is perhaps hardly going too far to say that it is very little use trying to convince any one by argument. State your case as clearly and concisely as possible, and if you shake his confidence in his own opinion it is as much as you can expect. It is the first step gained."
"After speech silence is the greatest power in the world."
"It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humouredly, and so spoiling an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce."
"When opposition of any kind is necessary, drop all colour of emotion out of it and let it be seen in the white light of truth."
"Nothing does reason more right than the coolness of those that offer it: For truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers."
"Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes Error a fault, and truth discourtesy."
"To speak wisely may not always be easy, but not to speak ill requires only silence."
"When a positive Man hath once begun to dispute anything, his Mind is barred up against all Light and better Information. Opposition provokes him, though there be never so good Ground for it, and he seems to be afraid of nothing more, than lest he should be convinced of the Truth."
"In proportion as we love truth more and victory less, we shall become anxious to know what it is which leads our opponents to think as they do. We shall begin to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibited by them must result from a perception of something we have not perceived. And we shall aim to supplement the portion of truth we have found with the portion found by them."
"He often thought that Dr. Arnold's maxim of being prepared each morning to consider everything an open question a good working rule. Not that one should readily change one's opinions, but should always have an open mind, never a closed one, on any question outside exact knowledge."