Conventional Wisdom Quotes - Page 4

• A well-functioning democracy has a culture of free speech, not simply legal protection of free speech. It encourages independence of mind. It imparts a willingness to challenge prevailing opinion through both words and deeds. Equally important, it encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers.

  Cass Sunstein

  Attitude, Democracies Have, Giving

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• I don't believe any experiment until it is confirmed by theory. I find this is a witty inversion of "conventional" wisdom.

  Arthur Eddington

  Witty, Believe, Theory

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• My businesses are usually built around challenging conventional wisdom, so I tend to gain by taking the other side. It's been very profitable and entertaining for me

  Mark Cuban

  Challenges, Gains, Sides

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• Whether you are buying a car or casting a ballot, choosing a job or planning a family, follow your moral compass. Don't let others define you. Don't let advertisers mold you; don't let zealots ensnare you; don't let conventional wisdom trap you....you are part of a much larger whole.

  Denis Hayes

  Jobs, Car, Casting

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• It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true

  Freeman Dyson

  Dream, Tasks, Unpredictable

  Freeman Dyson (2013). “FROM EROS TO GAIA”, p.94, Pantheon

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• The hardest thing over the years has been having the courage to go against the dominant wisdom of the time to have a view that is at variance with the present consensus and bet that view. The hard part is that the investor must measure himself not by his own perceptions of his performance, but by the objective measure of the market. The market has its own reality. In an immediate emotional sense the market is always right so if you take a variant point of view you will always be bombarded for some time by conventional wisdom as expressed by the market.

  Michael Steinhardt

  Reality, Emotional, Views

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• I'm very proud of the Rome episode of 'No Reservations' because it violated all the conventional wisdom about making television. You're never, ever supposed to do a food or travel show in black and white.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Black And White, Rome, Television

  "Anthony Bourdain: Giving Up Cigarettes 'Has in No Way Improved My Life'". Interview with Lindsay Silberman, www.tvguide.com. April 8, 2012.

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• A wise and clear-eyed book, Future Hype challenges the conventional wisdom about technological change and provides a fresh perspective on our so-called computer age.

  Nicholas G. Carr

  Wise, Book, Technological Change

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• Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.

  Richard Koch

  Wisdom, Eggs, Watches

  Richard Koch (2011). “The 80/20 Principle”, p.33, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

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• The elderly have weathered enough squalls to know that this one, too, shall pass. They own the courage to be original; they've learned to hold their own values above the conventional wisdom.

  Sarah Ferguson

  Elderly, Age, Enough

  Sarah Ferguson (2010). “What I Know Now: Simple Lessons Learned the Hard Way”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

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• The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive.  We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients.  We actually have a rather good track record, because we do select projects carefully. Most of our ideas don't eat dust but glimpse the light of day because we find it much more helpful to spend some serious time and effort before we start working on a project, rather than suffer through it afterwards.

  Stefan Sagmeister

  Moving, Dust, Years

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• Take a brilliant, creative social scientist, without any respect for conventional wisdom and you get Ellen Langer. She is a fantastic storyteller, and Counterclockwise is a fascinating story about the unexpected ways in which our minds and bodies are connected.

  Dan Ariely

  Creative, Mind, Stories

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• Around '93, '94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years.

  Marc Andreessen

  Years, Two, Toys

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• Contrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires… But what history really shows is that today`s empire is tomorrow`s ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.

  Mumia Abu-Jamal

  Believe, Fighting, Exercise

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• Contemporary art challenges us.. it broadens our horizons. It asks us to think beyond the limits of conventional wisdom.

  Eli Broad

  Art, Thinking, Challenges

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• An expert must be BOLD if he hopes to alchemize his homespun theory into
  conventional wisdom.

  Steven Levitt

  Experts, Theory, Ifs

  Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner (2006). “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”, p.121, Penguin UK

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• Strings of coincidence can strengthen us in the determination to follow our deepest intuitions even when they run counter to conventional wisdom and logic and cannot be subjected to rational explanation.

  Robert Moss

  Running, Determination, Words Of Wisdom

  Robert Moss (2010). “The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination”, p.122, New World Library

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• Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were-that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made-on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Exercise, Thinking, Long

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• If you leave home for a while ... you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions.

  Molly Ringwald

  Change, Home, Mean

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• I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side. But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

  John McCain

  Thinking, Numbers, Issues

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• Contrary to conventional wisdom, dance is not a universal 'language' but many languages and dialects. There are close to 6000 verbal languages, and probably that many dance languages.

  Judith Lynne Hanna

  Dance, Dialect, Language

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• Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and exploded the conventional wisdom about a shared American prosperity, exposing a group of people so poor they didn't have $50 for a bus ticket out of town. If we want to learn something from this disaster, the lesson ought to be: America's poor deserve better than this.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  America, People, Deserve Better

  "Come Hell or High Water". Book by Michael Eric Dyson, www.today.com. 2006.

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• Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

  Tom Peters

  Games, People, Support

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• In the conventional wisdom of conservatives, the modern search for security is regularly billed as the greatest single threat to economic progress.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Progress, Modern, Economic

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Conventional wisdom tells us we'll only be happier after a divorce if the marriage itself was a war zone.

  Ariel Gore

  War, Divorce, Zone

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