Consensus Quotes

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)

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

Martin Luther King Jr.

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

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Michael Crichton

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

Margaret Thatcher

In my view, there is an urgent need to communicate with the public and help to explain where there is consensus, and where are there doubts about the issues of sustainable development.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

But I think it's very key that there's a plan for Haiti. And we have to begin to - as progressives and people who are concerned about Haiti and have been concerned about Haiti, we have to begin to build some sort of consensus, a movement around the Haiti that the Haitians envision.

Danny Glover

We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.

Buckminster Fuller

The life of states cannot, any more than the life of individuals, be conditioned by the force and the will of a unit, however powerful, but by the consensus of a group, which must one day include all states.

Lester B. Pearson

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Colin Powell

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)

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

Michael Crichton

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Michael Crichton

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Michael Crichton

I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.

Jimmy Carter

I have experienced the intensity of patriotism as a submarine officer, the ambitions of a competitive businessman, and the intensity of political debate. I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners, and have felt the frustration of having to negotiate with allies or even former enemies to reach a consensus instead of taking more decisive unilateral action.

Jimmy Carter

Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continual comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.

George Santayana

We are close to a consensus that the Kyoto Protocol does huge economic, political, social, and ecological damage to the Russian Federation. In addition, it certainly violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, and well as the rights and freedoms of citizens in those countries which signed and ratified it.

Andrey Illarionov

Consensus Terrorism: The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior.

Douglas Coupland

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

There is no consensus in Israel regarding the two state formula. We will not, under any circumstances, allow the establishment of a neighbouring state that will be a genuine threat on our existence. (Reuven Rivlin)

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

Terry Pratchett

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

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

Michael Haneke

The first lesson, for all Canadians, is that the closed door, top down approaches to constitution making do not provide the public input or debate necessary to achieve a constitutional consensus that will be supported by the people.

Preston Manning

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