divergent viewpoints Quotes

When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary." If there is some point you haven't thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention.

What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker. When there is honest effort, it will be realised that what appears to be different truths are like apparently different countless leaves of the same tree.

Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.

it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than thesquarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.

Who’s to say that it takes something like a drug to mess with your perception of reality? How did Hitler deceive a nation? How can one group of people look at the world and see one thing, and another see something completely different? One sees a town, another sees a desert. One sees beauty, another sees chaos.” The skin of this world,” he said quietly.

Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views...The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.

Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.

Profound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.

It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been... one of the primary sources of progress.

Every fight is one between different angles of vision illuminating the same truth.

There is giant untapped potential in disagreement, especially if the disagreement is between two or more thoughtful people

Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromising. An intelligent group, especially when confronted with cognition problems, does not ask its members to modify their positions in order to let the group reach a decision everyone can be happy with. Instead…the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to think and act as independently as possible.

I reject the idea there are just two sides. I think that with the amount of ideas and thoughts there are, it's not even going to be consistent with the same person. People can hold liberal and conservative dogma points at the same time. They're not living their lives via platforms. They're living their lives. The whole thing is an awfully tired construct.

Any two people have different ideas of what is important.

There are as many forms of advice as there are colors of the rainbow. Remember that good advice can come from bad people and bad advice from good people. The important thing about advice is that it is simply that. Advice.

Just because you have a nut theory it doesn't mean that you agree with other nut theories. In fact, it often makes you very hostile to them. After all, there's a limited pool there that we're all after.

Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all.

Both our opinions are rooted in our experience," I said. "Both of them are true, it's just that we've had different experiences.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.

The truth has a million faces, but there is only one truth.

If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.

The last thing we want is a monolithic viewpoint where six people are standing before a president saying the same thing over and over again.

Errors are more numerous than truths, but fortunately too divided among themselves to take power.

There is always room for at least two truths.

The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement.