Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originall...y to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is ...cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies ...is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true d...uty of patriots.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new quest...ion. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »