Consensus Quotes - Page 4

• I've got billions of sparrows to worry about as well as everything else'. So there's the whole idea that whatever it is that you believe, it can never be valid unless you have some consensus reality demonstration.

  Todd Rundgren

  Believe, Reality, Ideas

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• In 1925, when Britain went back to the gold standard, that was supported by the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Bank of England, the civil service, the CBI, the TUC, the Times, the Economist; that consensus was very strong.

  Ed Balls

  Strong, Party, Gold

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• Everyone tries to talk you out of going to college. The consensus being that people are just gonna forget about you, you know, and that's the way the business works.

  Larisa Oleynik

  College, People, Trying

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

  Joe Eszterhas

  Voice, Giving, Waiting

  "The Hollywood hitman". Interview with Ed Vulliamy, www.theguardian.com. August 19, 2000.

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• Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Children, Blessed, Race

  Lewis H. Lapham (1995). “Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin-de-siècle”, p.18, Verso

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• Consensus negates leadership.

  Margaret Thatcher

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• Consensus is a poor substitute for leadership.

  Charlotte Beers

  Poor, Substitutes

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• Human consensus does not generate reality. Were it able to do so, the Sun would have taken to orbiting the Earth some time ago.

  Ursula Goodenough

  Taken, Reality, Doe

  "A Setback to the Dialogue: Response to Huston Smith". Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 36, Issue 2, p. 201, June 2001.

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• The art consensus is not criteria, it is convenience.

  Walter Darby Bannard

  Art, Culture, Criteria

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• There was a time when everyone thought that Earth was flat. Did this unanimous consensus make any difference to the shape of Earth?

  Ali Sina

  Differences, Earth, Shapes

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• I've never done anything for the common consensus. I do things to please me. If you are happy with something yourself, you become bulletproof.

  Ricky Gervais

  Please Me, Done, Common

  Interview with Alex Fletcher, www.digitalspy.com. April 15, 2010.

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• In leadership writ large, mutually agreed upon purposes help people achieve consensus, assume responsibility, work for the common good, and build community.

  Joseph C. Rost

  Responsibility, People, Community

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• Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

  Michael Crichton

  Way, Sun, Global Warming

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". Lecture by Michael Crichton, January 17, 2003.

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• Of course, we will face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Courage, Principles, Faces

  Thomas S. Monson (1988). “Live the Good Life”, Shadow Mountain

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• A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever since.

  Charles de Lint

  Real, Umpires, Long

  "The Ivory and the Horn". Book by Charles de Lint, "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", 1996.

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• Predators make it much more difficult to find consensus. It's a lot easier to agree about birds and plants than about animals that endanger people and livestock.

  Gale Norton

  Animal, People, Bird

  "The Complete Gale Norton Interview". Interview with Alex Pasquariello, www.hcn.org. May 24, 2004.

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• Corporate documents, like football game plans, are not easily drafted in a stadium, with thousands of very interested fans participating, each with their own red pencil, trying to reach a consensus on every word.

  Jon Postel

  Football, Games, Trying

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• Consensus is something you have if you cannot have agreement.

  Forbes Burnham

  Agreement, Ifs

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• Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

  Norman Mailer

  Confused, Groups, Answers

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• Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.

  James Surowiecki

  Diversity, Decision, Independence

  James Surowiecki (2005). “The Wisdom of Crowds”, p.19, Anchor

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• Politicians and some of the scientists like to say that there's a consensus now on global warming or the science has been settled, but you have to ask them, what is there a consensus on? Because it really makes a difference. What are you talking about? The only consensus I`m aware of is that it's warmed in the last century. They completely ignore the fact that there's this thing called the Oregon petition that was signed by 19,000 professionals and scientists who don't agree with the idea that we are causing climate change.

  Roy Spencer

  Talking, Ideas, Oregon

  "Exposed: The Climate of Fear". Interview with Glenn Beck, transcripts.cnn.com. May 2, 2007.

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• President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Consensus Building, President, Improvement

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• I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Thinking, Consensus Building, Meant To Be

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• That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social consensus that equates all education with training for increased productivity, only makes academe a still more promising environment for a contrarian.

  Will Self

  Political, Training, Environment

  "Why I said yes to Professor Self" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2012.

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• How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.

  Michel Onfray

  Girl, Children, Boys

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