"The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face"
About this Quote
The genius is in the metaphor. An “escape hatch” suggests a ship or aircraft in danger, not a seminar room. Harris frames the opponent as someone trapped by their own prior commitments, panic rising, pride locking the door. Your job, if you actually want to win rather than merely gloat, is to build a route out that doesn’t look like surrender. “Gracefully swing over” is almost athletic; it turns capitulation into movement, even style. And the clincher - “without too much apparent loss of face” - makes the real currency explicit. The argument’s outcome depends on optics.
As a mid-century newspaper columnist, Harris was writing in a culture of strong gatekeepers and public consensus-building, where debate happened in print and reputations traveled slowly but stuck. The line anticipates today’s performative discourse: dunking feels good, but it hardens identities. Harris is offering a pragmatic ethic for disagreement - not niceness, but strategy. Give your opponent language they can use: a new fact arrived, the situation changed, we agree on goals but not methods. That’s not manipulation; it’s recognizing that human beings don’t update beliefs like spreadsheets.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Harris, Sydney J. (2026, January 16). The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-in-an-argument-next-to-99298/
Chicago Style
Harris, Sydney J. "The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-in-an-argument-next-to-99298/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-in-an-argument-next-to-99298/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
