Conventional Wisdom Quotes

Analysts may be correct that the presidential election won‘t primarily turn on entitlements reform, but by choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney can, contrary to conventional wisdom, make it a winning issue and lay the foundation for a reform mandate when he wins.

It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

Never accept ultimatums, conventional wisdom, or absolutes.

I’m not one for conventional wisdom. I founded my label in 1998, but after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, my Japanese backers pulled out, and I couldn’t afford to produce the line myself. I needed fresh ideas from someone who understood technology, since that was the direction the business was going.

The conventional wisdom is that authors get only one chance in this world. If your first novel doesn’t sell, publishers and bookstores lose interest, and your career stalls, barring an act of God or Oprah.

The conventional wisdom is that people come to the United States, and immigration is so great, and they say, ‘America, what a great country.’ And a lot of that is true.

Around ’93, ’94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years.

What I want is to have people’s notion of adulthood no longer be so defined by being a parent. There is some kind of conventional wisdom that you‘re not really a mature person until you become a parent.

Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight.

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It’s about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it’s about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

Conventional wisdom is not always the best wisdom.

The biggest handicap in research is an ability to think outside the box. The handicap is being encumbered by all the conventional wisdom in a given field.

The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

Analysts may be correct that the presidential election won‘t primarily turn on entitlements reform, but by choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney can, contrary to conventional wisdom, make it a winning issue and lay the foundation for a reform mandate when he wins.

Just look at what is right in front of you. People don’t do that. They see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see. They only hear the music and not the lyrics of human events.

Conventional wisdom on government‘s role in inequality often has it backwards. Tax reforms have resulted in a more progressive federal income tax; government transfer payments have become less progressive.

The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie.

Mainstream media tend to just mouth the conventional wisdom, to see everything through the filter of right and left.

Never accept ultimatums, conventional wisdom, or absolutes.

Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and exploded the conventional wisdom about a shared American prosperity, exposing a group of people so poor they didn’t have $50 for a bus ticket out of town. If we want to learn something from this disaster, the lesson ought to be: America’s poor deserve better than this.

Conventional wisdom is not always the best wisdom.

I’m not a money manager, but I can tell you what the conventional wisdom is. The younger you are, the more risk you can take on.

There’s the conventional wisdom, of which I have none, where you get a record deal, you get a publicist, you get a campaign, and you do the tour, but none of that adds up to things like nuance and subtlety and dynamic.

We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda nonsense to us.

If your writing collides with the conventional wisdom, there’s going to be some kind of friction.

The conventional wisdom with David Mamet is, you do not change a word. And that agrees with me. If you want to change any of David’s words, it’s like wanting to change the iambic pentameter in Shakespeare – you should do something else.

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth – it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

For decades, conventional wisdom in the United States held that it was only a matter of time before China would become more liberal, first economically and then politically. We could not have been more wrong – a miscalculation that stands as the greatest failure of U.S. foreign policy since the 1930s.

When you’re used to being prepared to reject conventional wisdom, it leaves you open to learn more.

I love the early sonatas; I love the early Mozart, period. I’m really fond of that moment when he was either emulating Haydn or Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach or anybody but himself. The moment he found himself, as conventional wisdom would have it, at the age of 18 or 19 or 20, I stop being so interested in him.

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

It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

What’s unique about the Mormon Church is that it encourages inquiry. I really do think my research and religion are all on the same page. I never could have come up with the notion of disruptive innovations, which went against a lot of conventional wisdom, if I hadn’t been raised to always be asking questions.

To build a great company, which is a CEO‘s job, sometimes you have to stand up against conventional wisdom.

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can’t manage it.

Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight.

I’m very proud of the Rome episode of ‘No Reservations‘ because it violated all the conventional wisdom about making television. You’re never, ever supposed to do a food or travel show in black and white.