Careful Words

argument (n.)

  I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellect too.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Vicar of Wakefield. Chap. vii.

  It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.

What in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support,

That to the height of this great argument

I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.

  I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. ix. 1784.

A knock-down argument: 't is but a word and a blow.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Amphitryon. Act i. Sc. 1.

Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 4.

  Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt (1759-1806): Speech on the India Bill, November, 1783.

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 1.

  He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.

  Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument.

John Milton (1608-1674): Tractate of Education.

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one;

Nothing is fair or good alone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Each and All.

  The truth is always the strongest argument.

Sophocles (496-406 b c): Phaedra. Frag. 737.

  There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Democracy and Addresses.

His conduct still right, with his argument wrong.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Retaliation. Line 46.