Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, 'I better reexamine my position!' I probably believe that the worst opinions in my court have been unanimous. Because there's nobody on the other side pointing out all the flaws.

I can think of nothing worse than a think-tank where everybody agreed.

There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions.

Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

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.

If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

Honest difference of views and honest debate are not disunity. They are the vital process of policy among free men.

It is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

I think we Americans tend to put too high a value on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.

The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable.

How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.

When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.

After a long life I have come to the conclusion that when all the Establishment is united it is always wrong.

Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.

In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.

The Yesees said yes to anything That anyone suggested. The Noees said no to everything Unless it was proven and tested. So the Yesees all died of much too much And the Noees all died of fright, But somehow I think the Thinkforyourselfees All came out all right.

Being a wiseass in a groupthink environment is like throwing an egg at a bulldozer.

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

You shouldn’t blindly accept a leader’s advice. You’ve got to question leaders on occasion.

The nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.

What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.