Thabo Mbeki Quotes

I invite a variety people on my show with wide-ranging opinions - sometimes even my jaw hits the floor, too - but I let them speak. Whether it's left, right, or center, I want to expose my viewers to other perspectives. Agree with them or not, the nation needs to listen.

I believe in, 'I do it my way, and you do it your way, and then see what works' pattern. I think that comes with me having worked as an assistant director earlier, which I really enjoyed.

An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.

It is not truth, but opinion that can travel the world without a passport.

In fact, I think [Donald Trump] welcomes the fact that he's got people in the room that may not agree with each other on everything, but he prefers to be presented opinions that are varying at the same time and then making an informed decision based on everyone's input before making decisions.

The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.

Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think.

We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected.

It is the diversity of views that stems from different experiences and different backgrounds that lead to healthy decision-making and not the unified experiences and unified views.

We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.

You're no t going to please everybody.

Canadians are always asking the questions the rest of us are afraid to ask.

I now realize that I was very fortunate to have grown up in many different places, surrounded by all kinds of people, all kinds of points of view.

There is nothing obscure about the objectives of educational exchange. Its purpose is to acquaint Americans with the world as it is and to acquaint students and scholars from many lands with America as it is-not as we wish it were or as we might wish foreigners to see it, but exactly as it is-which by my reckoning is an "image" of which no American need be ashamed.

This is not a dictatorship, this is based upon scientific evidence to support a given project. If you want to put up a building, say half a mile high, the material has to be available. Using statistics is not a dictatorship. It's a method of getting the most from existing resources.

Instead of focusing on arguing with people who say no, it might be easier to get near the people who like to say yes.

I'm definitely not the kind of person who wants to push anything down anyone's throat, so I don't really mind what the outcome of the conversation is but just that people are talking about it is very important to me.

I heard that a lot and I just sort of thought, the world was an even more interesting place than the people who were making the decisions were perhaps interpreting it to be.

In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.

The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)

You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

You have to be willing to have the decision-making follow the data.

So many heads so many wits.

There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory.

A miscalculation is not negligence, nor prudence a crime. I am a scientist. I base my action or inaction upon probability and evidence. There is a reason we call science a discipline! Inferior minds bolt or build pyres to roast the witches in their midst!