“ All controversy depends from differences in estimation of term significations.”
“That’s why arguments are so maddening; even small discussions; people go rushing on, getting angrier and angrier, talking about quite different things, especially men, because they never want to get at the truth, only to score a point.”
“You are unjust; many men put truth before any other consideration whatsoever. It is not only unjust, it is most bad for you to hold this cynical estimation.”
“Well, men arguing always look like that to women. That’s why women always go off at a tangent; because they reply not to what men say but to what they mean , which is to score a point , which anybody can do, with practice, and while they hold on to the point they mean to score, they are revealed, under all sorts of circumstances, all sorts of things about them are as plain as a pikestaff, to a woman, and the results of these things; so that she suddenly finds herself saying something that sounds quite irrelevant, but isn’t.”
“Nevertheless there is honourable controversy, and most fruitful.”
“There are people here and there with open minds. Very few.”
“The point is not the few, but that they are .”
“The few just men, who save the city.”
“Exactly.”
“But even existence is not quite certain.”
“ What is this?”
“Descartes said , my existence is certain; that is a fallacy.”