Quotes About Consensus

Please all, and you will please none.

Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.

While some politicians argue over whether to believe scientists' almost overwhelming consensus on climate change, the business sector is a believer and is wisely planning ahead.

The intriguing aspect of food charges on airlines is that they create the perfect laboratory for any economist who wishes to study the question of how to price a good that possesses, by universal consensus, absolutely no objective value.

Unlike national legal systems, there are precious few avenues to address judicial activism at the WTO. You pretty much have to gain consensus to change the agreements, or simply withdraw from the system. The first is nearly impossible, and the second would be - in the view of many - cataclysmic.

The tragedy of America is that it entered all the wars with a consensus in favor of them, but within a defined period, the legitimacy of the war became a major domestic issue, with some people arguing that withdrawal was the only legitimate objective.

Segregated Witness was forced onto the miners by the community.

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

I'm going to guess Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I'm sure most people think women should be paid the same as men if they're doing the same job. I think we all want good schools for our kids. If we made that list, we actually are in agreement on more things.

Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.

It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

Consensus isn't just about agreement. It's about changing things around: You get a proposal, you work something out, people foresee problems, you do creative synthesis. At the end of it, you come up with something that everyone thinks is okay. Most people like it, and nobody hates it.

When you think you have something special, you can't be the only one what thinks it; everybody else has to agree.

I like that by inherently having to make a group decision, you're really thorough. And I have a lot more confidence with a decision going forward if I know it's been thorough.

The danger of what's happening right now in terms of using reconciliation is, the purpose of the Senate is going to be defeated. And that is to bring consensus to big issues in this country so that we have a reasoned and thoughtful approach and that the American public buys into it.

Sometimes, but not often, I am thoroughly convinced that the decision I have made is the right one, even though it differs from the others, and I will exercise my authority to approve or reject a decision against their wishes. In most cases, though, if we can't agree on something, a better idea is to table the decision rather than to exercise the power.

Another of those things that must be true because everyone else agrees they are, although they don't seem so to me.

The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor.

If ever there was a time for true bipartisanship, it is today.

You make decisions and you're not going to please everybody all the time.

By the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached.

Consultation is a good thing when people agree with you, and a waste of time when people don't agree with you

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