"If you do, you can't possibly win any debate."

The real object of life isn't winning debates. If you think it is, you're caught up in a competitive mental game that goes nowhere. A sufficiently clever and aggressive talker, after all, can seem to "win" many debates and still be wrong, still have a bad character, and still be someone most people would rather not know.

I say this because I've witnessed it in real life...many times.

To paraphrase an amusing old Peanuts cartoon from long ago...Charlie Brown is yelling at someone in the distance whom he's clearly had some difference of opinion with, and they supposedly "won" the debate. He's yelling at this person (Lucy?) who is apparently walking away having "trounced" him in the verbal fray...

Panel 1. Charlie Brown: "You think you're right, but you're not!"

Panel 2. (silent panel as he glares at unseen person who is probably receding in the distance)

Panel 3. Charlie Brown: "You just SOUND right!"

Charlie Brown almost always loses debates to more aggressive and confident and meaner people than himself, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're right and he's wrong.