If Only Everyone Were As Wise

It is a pleasure for me to salute [this] benefactor of our inhuman race:

J. Irwin Miller, chairman of the board of Cummins Engine Company, whom I watched in a television "talk" show as he patiently tried to explain his views to three condescending panelists, indubitable highbrows, who insisted on demolishing points Mr. Miller had not made, and persisted in ridiculing policies Mr. Miller had never propounded.

When he saw that he could not persuade the deep thinkers to desist from their eloquent irrelevances, the deadpan businessman finally cleared his throat and sighed, with exemplary kindness: "In my house, we all try to follow a rule I have once suggested to my children. The rule goes like this: "You can disagree with a man's position as much as you want -- after you have been able to state it, to his satisfaction."

I consider this dictum, which belongs in all anthologies of great quotations, the best statement ever made about the basic rule men of reason ought to follow during an argument...

People I have loved, known, or admired by Leo Rosten

I concur.