Consensus Quotes
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Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
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More Consensus Quotes
"If you don't have a consensus that it's nonsense, you don't have a breakthrough."
burt rutan— From article: Taylor, Chris (Nov. 29, 2004). The Sky's the Limit. Time Magazine, p. 67.
We're agreed that child sexual imagery is a case apart, it's illegal everywhere in the world, there's a consensus on that. It's absolutely right that we identify this stuff, we remove it and we report it to the authorities.
— Peter Barron, one of Google's Communications, quoted on BBC News, "Google and Microsoft agree steps to block abuse images", November 18, 2013.
Chicago 1968 taught one how close any civilized country is to berserkness at all times; also how terrorism, even silly terrorism, strengthens the cops more than anyone. Yet already this European-style history lesson has been watered down by consensus into something crazy we did in the sixties, just as we "did" McCarthyism in the fifties. As if a nation changes its nature completely every ten years; as if social forces were as evanescent as hula hoops or skateboards, instead of as remorseless as glaciers.
wilfrid sheed— "Chicago on My Mind" (1973), p. 266
It was impossible to get a decent meal, or even snack, anywhere, burned flapjacks and vulcanized steaks being as appetizing as things got. It also quickly became evident horribly evident that no one in the city knew how to make coffee, as if there were some sort of stultified consensus, or even city ordinance, about never waking up.
thomas pynchon— p. 66 (Against the Day (2006))
The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.
jeff cooper— Jeff Cooper, Guns and Ammo Magazine, April 1991.
Given that the deepest problem with the US economy is slow productivity growth, it is difficult to argue for tax increasesthat might reduceincentives? Thereseemsto Kuhn be a public consensus that Donald Trump is the price of progress.
— 1992 The Age of Diminished Expectations.
We reject: kings, presidents and voting.We believe in: rough consensus and running code.
— A Cloudy Crystal Ball -- Visions of the Future (PDF) (1992-07-16). Retrieved on 2008-06-04. (Presentation given at the 24th Internet Engineering Task Force)
— frequently cited as the motto of the Internet engineering community
The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.
jeff cooper— Jeff Cooper in,Guns & Ammo magazine ,April 1991.
When he let Kennedy use his column to send signals to Nikita Khrushchev, or lent his skill to Vandenberg to reinforce the anti-Soviet consensus in American diplomacy, he wasn't acting as a reporter but as a patriot. This urge may be a dereliction of duty in the journalist, but it is a sign of decency in the man. That the two impulses in journalism should so often be at odds — duty versus decency — tells us more about the trade than most of us care to know.
andrew ferguson— "Scotty: All the news that's fit to schmooze," The Weekly Standard (2003-02-24)
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— On the scientific worldview in A Setback to the Dialogue: Response to Huston Smith (2001)
There is an emerging scientific consensus that global warming is making hurricanes more intense and more destructive. It turns out that Katrina fits into a pattern that scientists and greens have been trying to warn us about for a long time.
johann hari— "Hurricane Katrina - an environmental 9/11?". JohannHari.com. September 3, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
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— "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", p. 254
Ever since Sir Isaac Newton's times, scientists have worked in the same sort of way: They show a great respect for experiment and observation, They don't cherry pick data, They take a skeptical approach to what they do. And then scientists work together to get a consensus as to what should be believed And that generates very reliable knowledge and that reliable knowledge drives innovation
paul nurse— Source: BBC iplayer, 37 mins
He worked quietly for years as keeper of the RFCs and final arbiter in technical matters when consensus couldn’t be reached. Postel believed that decisions he had made in the course of his work over the years had been for the good of the community and that starting a company to profit from those activities would have amounted to a violation of public trust.
jon postel— Where Wizards Stay Up Late (1996) by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
It closely resembles the situation that exists within a mental institution: in tight quarters, in similar garb, dissimilar minds attempt to build a consensus reality that, with a monumental effort of empathy, cannot—can never!—take concrete form.
jeff vandermeer— AppendiX, "King Squid", Part III: Expounding with brevity on the pecularities of squid lore, note 32
Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.
zbigniew brzezinski— Conclusion, p. 211
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.
christopher hitchens— "Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate," debate at University of Toronto, (2006-11-15). Hitchens argued the affirmative position. Info; video.
The Shah regarded politics as the province of demagoguery, an art in which only charlatans could excel. He had no time for what he saw as the tedious process of achieving consensus through debate and discussion and tried to justify his solitary exercise of power by insisting it was what Iran needed to catch up with lost time. He believed he was more patriotic than anyone else and needed no advice on how best to promote and protect the highest interests of the nation.
muhammad reza pahlavi— Amir Taheri (1991), The Unknown Life of the Shah, page 3
It is now the scientific consensus that our risk-avoidance mechanism is not mediated by the cognitive modules of our brain, but rather by the emotional ones. This may have made us fit for the Pleistocene era. Our risk machinery is designed to run away from tigers; it is not designed for the information-laden modern world.
nassim nicholas taleb— Quoted in the introduction to "A Talk with Nassim Nicholas Taleb," Edge (April 2004) [1]
Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support.
larry wall— Usenet article <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> (1997)
:;: - cut in regexps I don't think we reached consensus on that. We're still backtracking...
larry wall— Usenet article <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> (1997)
Further world progress is now possible only through the search for a consensus of all mankind, in movement toward a new world order.
— Mikhail Gorbachev, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly (7 December 1988)
Neque est ullum certius amicitiæ vinculum, quam consensus et societas consiliorum et voluntatum.
cicero— There is no more sure tie between friends than when they are united in their objects and wishes.
— Cicero, Oratio Pro Cnœo Plancio, II.
Auxilia humilia firma consensus facit.
publilius syrus— Union gives strength to the humble.
— Syrus, Maxims.
In 1992, the two sides (Taiwan and Mainland China) reached a consensus that each side would verbally express their adherence to the one China principle.
— Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: "Ma dishonest in avowal of the ‘1992 consensus’" in The Taipei Times, 26 July 2013.
— Statement made in response to the congratulating message sent by Xi Jinping via telegram after Ma Ying-jeou was reelected as the Chairman of KMT, 20 July 2013.
"A consensus [that] has been established … around the British concept of a market system stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals, accompanied by intergovernmental co-operation in areas where collective action is more efficient, and a security policy integrated with that of the USA."
— Nicolas Baverez (French commentator and author), 2003
consensus politics means that you cannot afford to give the many-headed beast, the public, anything to vote against, for voting against is what gargantuan pseudodemocracy has to come down to.
Germaine Greer— "The Big Tease" (October 1972), p. 138
The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are all Chinese by ethnicity. Cross-strait relations are not international relations. Each side acknowledges the existence of "one China", but maintains its own interpretation based on the 1992 consensus.
— Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: "Ma touts economic liberalization, cross-strait peace" in Taipei Times, 11 October 2013.
— Statement made during the 102nd ROC national day ceremony at the Presidential Office in Taipei, 10 October 2013.
We must shed the old stereotype of anarchists as bearded bomb throwers furtively stalking about city streets at night. Kropotkin was a genial man, almost saintly according to some, who promoted a vision of small communities setting their own standards by consensus for the benefit of all , thereby eliminating the need for most functions of a central government .
— Stephen Jay Gould in "Kropotkin Was No Crackpot" in Natural History 106 (June 1997)
