Thomas Jefferson 1195

I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own disspassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves disspassionately what we hear from others standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. It was one of the rules which above all others made Doctr Franklin the most amiable of men in society 'never to contradict anybody.' If he was urged to announce an opinion, he did it rather by asking questions, as if for information, or by suggesting doubts. When I hear another express an opinion, which is not mine, I say to myself ...