"The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it"
About this Quote
Arguing is often treated like a sport: pick a side, rack up points, win. Maurois punctures that whole performance by suggesting the real work happens before you open your mouth. Defending an opinion is theatrical; knowing it is intimate. The line quietly accuses us of mistaking verbal agility for intellectual honesty, as if fluency were the same thing as belief.
The phrasing is doing more than offering self-help. "Defend" implies a public arena with opponents, rules, and ego on the line. "Know" turns the camera inward. It asks whether what we call an opinion is actually a stitched-together bundle of inherited slogans, mood, tribe, and half-digested facts. Maurois is pointing at the moment when an argument stops being about truth and becomes about identity maintenance: the opinion is less a conclusion than a costume.
Context matters here. Writing in the early-to-mid 20th century, Maurois watched Europe cycle through ideological fervor, propaganda, and the catastrophic consequences of people being extremely certain about things they had never examined. In that world, the danger isn't just being wrong; it's being un-self-aware while you're right on the surface. The quote’s sting is that it reframes "difficulty" as a moral category: knowing your opinion requires confronting your motives, your blind spots, and the fact that you may not actually have one yet. It’s a plea for epistemic humility dressed as a clean, balanced sentence.
The phrasing is doing more than offering self-help. "Defend" implies a public arena with opponents, rules, and ego on the line. "Know" turns the camera inward. It asks whether what we call an opinion is actually a stitched-together bundle of inherited slogans, mood, tribe, and half-digested facts. Maurois is pointing at the moment when an argument stops being about truth and becomes about identity maintenance: the opinion is less a conclusion than a costume.
Context matters here. Writing in the early-to-mid 20th century, Maurois watched Europe cycle through ideological fervor, propaganda, and the catastrophic consequences of people being extremely certain about things they had never examined. In that world, the danger isn't just being wrong; it's being un-self-aware while you're right on the surface. The quote’s sting is that it reframes "difficulty" as a moral category: knowing your opinion requires confronting your motives, your blind spots, and the fact that you may not actually have one yet. It’s a plea for epistemic humility dressed as a clean, balanced sentence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | Quote attributed to André Maurois — listed on English Wikiquote (André Maurois page). |
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