Conventional Wisdom Quotes

• Mainstream media tend to just mouth the conventional wisdom, to see everything through the filter of right and left.

  Arianna Huffington

  Wisdom, Media, Filters

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• Conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. Conventional wisdom is taking somebody else's word for the way things are It's the followers of this world who rely on assumption. Not the leaders.

  Richard Marcinko

  Leader, Followers, World

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• Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment

  Steve Albini

  Doubt, Reason, Verify

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• Progress is not a straight line; the future is not a mere projection of trends in the present. Rather, it is revolutionary. It overturns the conventional wisdom of the present, which often conceals or ignores the clues to the future.

  Dr. An Wang

  Progress, Lines, Trends

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• There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

  Ben Horowitz

  Knowing Nothing, Shortcuts, Knowledge Gained

  Ben Horowitz (2014). “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom.

  Hyman Rickover

  Creativity, Ideas, Mind

  United States. Congress. Joint Economic Committee, Hyman George Rickover (1982). “Economics of Defense Policy: Adm. H.G. Rickover : Hearing Before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session”

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• Never accept ultimatums, conventional wisdom, or absolutes.

  Christopher Reeve

  Accepting, Ultimatum, Absolutes

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• Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.

  Carl Sagan

  Challenges, Dogma, Sometimes

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.16, Ballantine Books

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• One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.

  Anna Quindlen

  Age, Conformity, Realizing

  Anna Quindlen (2012). “Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir of a Woman's Life”, p.42, Random House

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• People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.

  Anna Quindlen

  Girl, Wisdom, Boys

  "The Good Guys". The New York Times Opinion Page, www.nytimes.com. April 11, 1993.

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• The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life.

  Larry Ellison

  Inspirational, Teacher, Personality

  "Prophet of Software". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

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• The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.

  Larry Ellison

  Inspirational, Errors, Way

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• Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

  Norman Cousins

  Motivational, Wisdom, Entrepreneur

  Norman Cousins (1974). “The celebration of life: a dialogue on immortality and infinity”, Harper San Francisco

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• When you're used to being prepared to reject conventional wisdom, it leaves you open to learn more.

  Mayim Bialik

  Used, Rejects, Prepared

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Challenge conventional wisdom. There is almost always a better way.

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  Challenges, Way, Conventional

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• The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Ideas, Enemy, Events

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.11, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

  Bob Woodward

  Wisdom, People, Stories

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

  Peter Jennings

  Knows, Conventional

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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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• 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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• 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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