Quotes About Consensus

The art consensus is not criteria, it is convenience.

CONSENSUS TERRORISM:The process that decides in- office attitudes and behavior.

On the one hand, the national consensus is that Florida is a stupid weird insane dysfunctional hellhole that is also—I forgot to mention this earlier—a hurricane zone that is soon going to be largely submerged when global climate change causes the seas to rise to the point where vast herds of lobsters roam what is now Interstate 95. On the other hand, people keep coming here. And most of them—even the non-stupid ones—decide to stay here.

if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to "work together") they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.

When most of the people who know the most about a subject are seen to agree, despite their competitiveness, then it's generally wise for policy to begin by paying heed to expert advice.

people sometimes use teamwork as an excuse for suppressing dissenting opinions.

Investors generally fail to follow the most basic investment precepts. Instead of concentrating on the central issue of creating sensible long-term asset-allocation targets, investors too frequently focus on the unproductive diversions of security selection and market timing. Instead of constructing equity-oriented, well diversified, tax-sensitive portfolios, investors too frequently choose to mimic the conventional, poorly structured consensus

Atwater knew — as did everyone at Style, though by some strange unspoken consensus it was never said aloud — that this was the single great informing conflict of the American psyche. The management of insignificance. It was the great syncretic bond of US monoculture.

A U.S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness:

A U.S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness: The happy pleasure of the person alone, yes?

U.S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness:

U.S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness: 'The happy pleasure of the person alone, yes?

All I want is compliance with my wishes, after reasonable discussion.

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

My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.

Any idiot knows that the first thing you do when seizing absolute power is bribe the Praetorian Guard. It's really the only tenured and tacitly understood method of making the cogs of accession mesh smoothly. First you hand out big fat bonuses to the military, then seize your power by force, then build your consensus via relentless intimidation and bondage attire. Authoritarian

The university has become the multiversity and the nature of the presidency has followed this change…. The president of the multiversity is leader, educator, wielder of power, pump; he is also officeholder, caretaker, inheritor, consensus seeker, persuader, bottleneck. But he is mostly a mediator.

We want to choose one but to be chosen by all.

Let us not concur casually about the most important matters.

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

Projecting a persuasive image of a desirable and practical future is extremely important to high morale, to dynamism, to consensus, and in general to help the wheels of society turn smoothly.

She always said yes to whoever asked her out. It wouldn't have occurred to her to say no.

And yet, over time, the Court and the public seem to maintain a certain equilibrium. Public opinion polls regularly reflect that "diffuse" approval for the Supreme Court—that is, approval of the institution in general, rather than of particular actions—is higher than for other institutions of government.

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.