On the record
I never feel so confident of my conclusions as when strong men have taken the opposite side, and have failed to sustain it.
Source
gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “I never feel so confident of my conclusions as when strong men have taken the opposite side, and have failed to sustain…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann reflects on the confidence he gains from the strength of opposing arguments, valuing rigorous debate.
Share
More from Horace Mann
The man of independent circumstances has this liberty; and no man’s circumstances, not even the poorest and the humblest, should be so dependent as to take it away.
Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, if it be not FREE!
The kidnapper, Alberti, now lies in a Pennsylvania prison for carrying away a mother and her child; but the mother and the child are now groaning under the lash of a southern taskmaster.
Better be debarred from the privilege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, while cheated of the substance.
Other voices in this conversation
