Virginia Woolf Quotes

It's really important, whether you're a conservative or a liberal, to always challenge the conventional wisdom, which is what I've tried to do in all my work.

I don't think we ought to base our policy on what the conventional wisdom is.... The conventional wisdom usually is wrong.

To be a contrarian, you've got to be a contrarian against your own people.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

I always grew up with, 'Question authority.'

Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.

Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.

Think for yourself and question authority.

Nothing energizes me more than to burrow myself under a pile of received wisdom and emerge triumphant with the truth.

People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.

I reject most conventional wisdom.

Conventional wisdom is not always the best wisdom.

Some will say that I have an issue with authority, but I just like to question things.

I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions... Don't take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can't. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself.

I would say for the young: Don't be straight jacketed by ideology. Don't be driven by a structure of ideas.

Never assume the obvious is true.

We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far.

I've never liked categories; I've never liked boxes; I've always tried to be unconventional as much as I possibly could.

I've always enjoyed doing challenging things and also challenging common wisdom.

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

I don't follow what everybody else does.

It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.