Mo Udall Quotes

Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.

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..

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually

If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary.

I can guarantee you one thing, we will never agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis.

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

We try to make sensible decisions with the facts in front of us. The problem with sensible decisions is that so is everyone else.

In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed.

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.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

It is idle to await unanimity.

If two people always agree, one of them is redundant.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

When everyone is unanimous, I wonder whether they are right…. George, at every meeting henceforth I want you to make the most cogent and articulate argument against the war and I will never stop you.

… the difficulty in bringing our people to agree upon it has ever discouraged me.

As a rule, the most dangerous ideas are not the ones that divide people but those on which they agree.

Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.

Say, Not so, and you will out circle the philosophers.

How do I know that I know this, except that I've always been taught this and never heard anything else? [...] How sure am I of my own views? Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be okay, because you're in the safely moral majority.

One must not mistake majority for truth.

Why the critics, like a flock of ducks, always move in perfect unison: Their authority with the public depends upon an appearance of unanimous agreement. One dissenting voice would shatter the whole fragile structure.

Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

When the conversation started to move to the things that we disagreed on, Donald Trump moved it back to the things that we could agree on. I think that's the way you get deals done, right? You and I might disagree 80% of the time but that still gives us 20% opportunity to try to work things out.

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.