Conventional Wisdom Quotes - Page 2

• Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

  Archibald MacLeish

  Sports, Football, Wisdom

  Archibald MacLeish (1978). “Riders on the Earth: essays and recollections”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

  Ed Miliband

  Wisdom, Challenges, Progress

  "Labour conference: Ed Miliband speech in full". www.theguardian.com. September 28, 2010.

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• I'm not a money manager, but I can tell you what the conventional wisdom is. The younger you are, the more risk you can take on.

  Maria Bartiromo

  Risk, Managers, I Can

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• I've always shied away from conventional wisdom, though I know the power of it.

  Peter Jennings

  Knows, Conventional

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• Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Running, Wisdom, Results

  Autobiographical Essay for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, www.nobelprize.org. 2001.

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• All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

  Henry Petroski

  Design, Ensemble, Elements

  "ASK OCE Interview: Five Questions for Dr. Henry Petroski". Interview with Henry Petroski, appel.nasa.gov. July 20, 2006.

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• It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

  Adam Schiff

  Wisdom, War, Iraq

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• Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

  Sam Walton

  Swim, Way, Conventional

  Sam Walton (2012). “Sam Walton: Made In America”, p.317, Bantam

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• Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

  Nick Clooney

  Mistake, Iraq, Troops

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• The biggest handicap in research is an ability to think outside the box. The handicap is being encumbered by all the conventional wisdom in a given field.

  Aubrey de Grey

  Thinking, Research, Fields

  "How Beer, Oprah and Sergey Brin Can Help Cure Aging". Interview with Steven Leckart, www.wired.com. October 19, 2010.

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• The world is always changed by people who don't listen to conventional wisdom. I think we often set our goals too small and try to accomplish them too quickly.

  Rick Warren

  Thinking, Goal, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

  Sam Walton

  Opposites, Way, Chance

  Sam Walton (2012). “Sam Walton: Made In America”, p.317, Bantam

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• Question everything, even if it represents generations of conventional wisdom.

  Robert Ringer

  Creativity, Ideas, Innovation

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• Innovation for holders of conventional wisdom is not novelty but annihilation.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Innovation, Novelty, Annihilation

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• Anyone who strays too far from the majority view or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled "arrogant," "a maverick," "a Wildman," "weird," or even "crazy."

  John Eliot

  Crazy, Views, Achievement

  John Eliot, PhD (2015). “Overachievement: The Science of Working Less to Accomplish More”, p.71, Diversion Books

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• Unquestionably, the world is better off without Saddam.

  Adam Schiff

  World, Better Off, Saddam

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• I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions... Don't take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can't. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself.

  Noam Chomsky

  Wisdom, Attitude, Taken

  Institute Professor Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky, John Junkerman, Takei Masakazu (2015). “Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force”, p.5, Routledge

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• Here's conventional wisdom: Success makes you happy. Happiness permits you to be generous. In fact, it actually works like this: Generosity makes you happy. Happy people are more likely to be successful.

  Seth Godin

  Successful, People, Generosity

  "The generosity boomerang". sethgodin.typepad.com. April 23, 2014.

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• Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight.

  Chip Conley

  Political, Entrepreneur, Suits

  "What Drives an Entrepreneur?" by Chip Conley, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 5, 2011.

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• Never accept conventional wisdom when it comes to finance. If others keep failing, why do you want to follow them?

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  Want, Failing, Finance

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• Conventional wisdom would have one believe.

  Mumia Abu-Jamal

  Believe, Conventional

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• [T]he myth that there was somehow a magic wand in the early 1980s to cure AIDS - a wand that Reagan deliberately refused to wave - is now almost conventional wisdom.

  Andrew Sullivan

  Magic, Politics, Wave

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• Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It's a basic fact of life that many things "everybody knows" turn out to be wrong.

  Jim Rogers

  Opinion Leaders, People, Support

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• Analysts may be correct that the presidential election won't primarily turn on entitlements reform, but by choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney can, contrary to conventional wisdom, make it a winning issue and lay the foundation for a reform mandate when he wins.

  David Limbaugh

  Running, Winning, Issues

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• I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.

  Rod Humble

  Optimistic, Swings, Long

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