Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; an argument an exchange of ignorance (Robert Quillen) 

If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test.  (Mary Wollstonecraft)

Freedom and order are not incompatible… truth is strength… free discussion is the very life of truth.  (Thomas Huxley)

Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.  (Robert Greene) 

If we are all in agreement on the decision – then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about. (Alfred P. Sloan)

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”  (Chimamanda Ngozi Adic)

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.  (Noam Chomsky)

We live in this world in order always to learn industriously and to enlighten each other by means of discussion and to strive vigorously to promote the progress of science and the fine arts.  (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

“We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons… but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” 
(Gloria Steinem)

When you strip hope from people, it leaves a void, and that void needs to be filled. And very likely, that void is going to be filled by an ideology… Hope and faith are so connected. Now, when ideology connects with faith, the ideology becomes an item of faith, not a point of discussion. (Alfonso Cuaron) 

We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analysing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.  (Neville Chamberlain)

By bringing current events into the classroom, everyday discussion, and social media, maybe we don’t need to wait for our grandchildren’s questions to remind us we should have paid more attention to current events.  (Adora Svitak)

Try to find someone with a sense of humor. That’s an important thing to have because when you get into an argument, one of the best ways to diffuse it is to be funny. You don’t want to hide away from a point, because some points are serious, but you’d rather have a discussion that was a discussion, rather than an argument.  (Ed Sheeran)

Political correctness kills discussion.  (Lars von Trier)

The Occupy movement did spontaneously create communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.  (Noam Chomsky) 

“…remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”  (Abigail Adams)

In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish.  (Karl Lagerfeld)

Fashion is an industry of action, not discussion. (Imran Amed)

I liked discussion and debate and thought that these skills fit well with law. I also had an interest in justice – and later learned that sometimes law and justice actually agree!  (Harold H. Greene)

I believe the war on terror is the vital discussion of this decade and of our generation, probably. To win the war on terror, you need a good offense and a good defense. On defense, I regret to say, basically, this administration has not come close to doing what is necessary.  (Chuck Schumer)

A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy. (George Soros)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become much more effective at seeking and accepting help and bringing other people into the discussion. You start to understand that you can’t control or fix everything on your own. (Joanna Coles)

If somebody comes to a neighborhood coffee hour, or goes to a discussion group, and they have a discussion, I do think that people really walk away with a real understanding of the issues.  (Mike Lowry)

This freedom of political discussion on the highest level is something which Western civilization has in common with that of classical antiquity, but with no other.  (Christopher Dawson)

What the nation’s built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can’t discuss anything. If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized. If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.  (Donald Sutherland)

I find this in all these places I’ve been travelling – from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil – there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with a kind of absence of discussion of questions of justice and ethics and of values.  (Michael Sandel)

Through Black Lives Matter and social media, we’ve been able to have a really challenging discussion with America about police and how much it is investing in policing.  (Patrisse Cullors)

Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved. Richard Meier If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.  (Stephen Hawking)

For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills. (Ken Ham) 

India seeks to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council… things like this don’t happen automatically, you need constant dialogue and discussion with the world.  (Pratibha Patil)

The whole gun debate needs to be infused with a discussion about manhood. It’s frustrating to hear debates about gun rights vs. gun control, and yet very few people say what’s hidden in plain sight: It’s really a contest of meanings about manhood. (Jackson Katz)

Provocative… I used to be defensive about it, but in the end, I realised it’s exactly right. It’s what we’re trying to do – to provoke thought and discussion and, you know, shake people up to start thinking about things in a different way. I’m interested in messing with what they think is the norm.  (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion.  (William Ernest Henley)

We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men. (George Ripley)

I was famous in our college for calm and impassioned discussion; for one whole summer, I rose at five and went to bed at midnight, that I might have sufficient time for theology and metaphysics. (William Godwin)

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.  (Honore de Balzac)

There are grave misgivings that the discussion on ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty.  (Indira Gandhi)

If a teacher does not involve himself, his values, his commitments, in the course of discussion, why should the students?  (Paul Wellstone)

Humility is of central importance; I think it’s an underappreciated virtue in the contemporary discussion of law and politics.  (Cass Sunstein)

The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion.  (Christopher Hitchens)

The problem with modern politics is everybody is doing sound bite stuff. In my stump speech, I give 20 minutes on why I think we’re off track. And I think people do really want to engage in a serious high-level discussion on how to get the country back on track because people care about their own country.  (Dave Brat)

A scientist’s aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.  (Leo Szilard)

Life is apogee, apex, decline; life is death – and everything else is open to discussion. (Colin Farrell)

Part of China’s strategic planning is to make their universities among the top level of the world, and I think they understand you can’t do that without the adoption of some of the principles of the great universities in the West; one of those is the ability to have free expression and discussion in the classroom.  (Stephen A. Schwarzman)

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.  (John Dalberg-Acton) 

The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it’s possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.  (George Soros)

The thing I don’t understand is why so often one hears discussion of the fruits of human labor as if it’s all the creation of some alien race.  (Chris Ware)

Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.  (Miguel de Unamuno)

I don’t want to sound disingenuous here – controversy is obviously good for business, especially if your business is satire. And it does amplify the discussion – in my view, a good thing.  (Gary Trudeau) 

Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don’t have to obey their own laws. In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want – not only you, your whole family and all people like you.  (Ai Weiwei)

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.  (Alan Dundes)

I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent. (Sendhil Mullainathan)

Creativity is our North Star. This way of working and this speed, this new opening and innovation, putting everything in discussion must remain at the base of what we do.  (Marco Bizzarri)

The discussion of animal rights in jallikattu has been misunderstood. We know that the tails of the bulls are broken, that chilly powder is rubbed into their eyes and they are forcibly fed country liquor. The animal is overwhelmed and does not know what is happening.  (Amala Akkineni)

When people don’t like my politics, I am happy to have a political discussion with them.  (Meghan McCain)

There’s a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.  (Baz Luhrmann)

In daily life, there are times when people are happy to talk about problems, but when the society is troubled by something, there is never a larger platform for discussion. Bollywood is ‘religion’ in our country and that is the best place where you can place those questions on the table.  (Anubhav Sinha) 

I don’t think that I would always be asked about my feelings about liberal bias in the media if there wasn’t any liberal bias in the media. If it was a moot question, then we wouldn’t always have the discussion.  (Dana Perino) 

After all, what is cinema? It is an interaction, a discussion that throws up questions and provides some solutions. The solutions might look simple, impractical or too fictionalised. But one must realise that viewers empathise with certain characters because they strike a chord with the viewers’ needs and frame of mind.  (Suresh Gopi)

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.  (Joan Baez)

More than 30 years ago, when I had embarked upon the fight against child labour, it was not even considered an issue worth any discussion. It was accepted as a way of life in India, much like it was in other countries. Today, no country or business or society can throw this issue away.  (Kailash Satyarthi) 

Group discussion is very valuable; group drafting is less productive.  (Jon Postel)

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.  (James McGreevey)

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‘intelligence’ and selected ‘leaks.’  (Brian Eno)

In the U.K. there is still work to be done, particularly in schools, stopping the homophobic bullies in the playground and introducing unbiased discussion on gay issues in the classroom.  (Ian Mckellen)

At the highest level, a discussion can be good sometimes to get everyone back on their toes.  (Kevin De Bruyne)

I think this whole discussion about what is politically correct – sometimes you have to name the name. You can’t hide it. Politeness is good if it’s not hiding the truth.  (Raoul Peck)

When things come up, you deal with them. However uncomfortable that is, let’s have this discussion right now.  (Derek Trucks)