Henry Cabot Lodge Quotes

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Everything popular is wrong.

It's perfectly O.K. to not be completely predictable. I am a person, and I have individual opinions that may not line up ideologically.

I think there's something important in going against the grain and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

Every film has to be the next something else; originality isn't celebrated because you can't market it.

The ideas of an age are most abundant where they are not crowded by original ideas.

I think if I'm controversial it's not because I set out to be. It's because I've never felt comfortable being part of someone else's mainstream community.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

I've always shied away from conventional wisdom, though I know the power of it.

Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt.

It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white.

From an early age I didn't buy into the value systems of working hard in a nine-to-five job. I thought creativity, friendship and loyalty and pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable was much more interesting.

I think I always have been someone who likes to push at the edges of things, looking for something different.

But I'm not trying to convince anybody how to vote or how to live. Nobody's ever successfully accused me of being realistic.

I'm actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

I mean, I'm not a contrarian.

I am a contrarian.

I don't like playing standards. I like to do my own cutting edge work.

When I was younger, I just thought that my plans were probably going to be more exciting than my parents' plans or the establishment. I sort of got by on being a little bit of a rebel.

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.

Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.

There are plenty of team players in government who do whatever the leader says. There are too few difficult members, who have complicated minds, unusual perspectives, the toughness to withstand the party-line barrages and a practical interest in producing results.

Never judge something by whether it is popular or not. You don't have to follow trends. No one thought William Wilberforce was right at first.

I reject most conventional wisdom.