Quotes About Consensus

Unanimity is the mistress of strength.

Success in politics demands that you must take your people into confidence about your views and state them very clearly, very politely, very calmly, but nevertheless, state them openly.

No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.

Without common ideas, there is no common action, and without common action men still exist, but a social body does not. Thus in order that there be society, and all the more, that this society prosper, it is necessary that all the minds of the citizens always be brought together and held together by some principle ideas

In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

In order that society should exist, and a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas...

Democracy "Democracy is the most fragile thing on earth, for what does it rest upon? You and me, and the fact that we agree to maintain it. The moment either of us says we will not, that's the end of it. It doesn't rest on anything but us; it doesn't rest on armed force, the moment it does it isn't democracy. It isn't something to kick around or experiment with." —Allen Drury, Stanford University (age 19)

Sanity - a trick of agreement

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.

Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it's just an idea everyone agrees to.

who tries to please everyone pleases no one at all.

By harnessing the collective intelligence in the room, we can make decisions that are much smarter than those made by individuals.

Vietnam War threatened to tear that consensus asunder, as the disaster in Southeast Asia consumed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party began questioning the costs of American global leadership

Very few scientists now defend the idea that depression is simply caused by low levels of serotonin, but the debate about whether chemical antidepressants work—for some other reason we don't fully understand—is still ongoing. There is no scientific consensus. Many distinguished scientists agree with Irving Kirsch; many agree with Peter Kramer.

What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.

Nothing defines the quality of life in a community more clearly than people who regard themselves, or whom the consensus chooses to regard, as mentally unwell.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

We're not going to have any tyranny of the majority in this organization. We proceed on the principle of unanimity. What we do we do all together or not at all. This is a brotherhood we have here, not a legislative assembly.

They shall see eye to eye.

Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ.

The Internet now provides an immediate and very clear consensus of what it is that the audience is experiencing. It's something that you should never let lead you, and yet at the same time, you should never ignore it.