Contrarian Quotes

The best opportunities are often ones where you're being contrarian. That doesn't mean being contrarian for contrarian's sake, but it means you're thoughtful about the risks of following the crowd. (David Sze)

I hate publicity, celebrity, fame, and notoriety, all of which are associated with controversy in its public form. But, in fairness, all my life I've been rather upfront with my opinions and never hidden them on grounds of conformity or (I fear) politesse. However, until the wretched Polish consulate affair, I don't think I was ever controversial-I was certainly not known outside of the hermetic little world of the academy, and my contrarian scholarly writings aroused no great fuss.

Tony Judt

I don't really know much about pirates, or pirate culture. I'd be a contrarian pirate.

Todd Barry

My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. ... In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.

Peter Thiel

Not a 'Mad Men' guy. Never got into it. I'm kind of a contrarian that way. If something gets too popular too fast before I can get on it, I just get really annoyed. Everybody tells me I'm an idiot; it's supposed to be amazing. I saw some of the second season; I loved it, but I was just detached. I didn't get into it.

D. J. Cotrona

When I was young, I had this contrarian thing, and my music for a long time was an extension of that. I didn't want to entertain people; I had too much vanity to be an entertainer. I think that some layers of vanity came off.

J Tillman

When you're young, you want to make every kind of film: musicals, Westerns, horror. Slowly you begin to hear your own voice. I hope people receive what I do as small, personal films that are somewhat contrarian about their main characters.

Jason Reitman

I have a slightly contrarian streak as a writer, and one of the things I was interested in was how distilled could I make a life, and how I could cross what is kind of trivialized as a domestic novel with a novel of ideas, a philosophical novel.

Jenny Offill

I mean, I'm not a contrarian.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura

I'm a bit of a contrarian, so I like the idea of going on stage without makeup, without the hair being done, in the jeans and shirt I've been wearing all day. At first that was an issue, because I didn't want to be disrespectful.

Lou Doillon

I have followed my heart my whole life - the crazy kid, a contrarian by nature, and I've been in trouble in points in my career. (Sarah Carter)

I do look for openings where I can overturn popular misconceptions, but unlike Christopher Hitchens, I am neither a contrarian nor a lone heretic. I like to have a significant number of academics watching my back.

Steven Pinker

That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social consensus that equates all education with training for increased productivity, only makes academe a still more promising environment for a contrarian.

Will Self

Each of us must have tucked away in some corner of his and her brain a contrarian -- or ipkha mistabra -- compartment whose function it is to seek out views other than those we readily consent to because they swarm around us. The devil's advocate can well turn out to be an angelic emissary. And swimming against the stream may be the best way to avoid drowning.

Norman Lamm

To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.

Michael Bloomberg