Roger von Oech Quotes

When great questions end, little parties begin.

What I love is getting polarized opinions.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

The news is increasingly full of mismatched people saying daft things to one another.

I never saw a hotter argument on so unexciting a subject.

By definition, politics is, or ought to be, division.

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

I disagree that I'm on the wrong side. I'm just not on your side.

I don't object to polarization if it achieves an objective.

Divisiveness is the only thing that sells today. Comity dies not sell. Civility does not sell.

We've become so polarized we've become paralyzed.

Politics is about divisions. Wherever you come in on the subject, there are divisions.

I don't want to engage in politics; it's too hot.

If you're going to talk about politics, then there are going to be folks who are with you and folks that are against you.

It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.

Doubtless there are times when controversy becomes a necessary evil. But let us remember that it is an evil.

I mean, you know, this idea that somebody we disagree with on economic or social policy or something we have to turn into some kind of ogre or demon, I think, is a mistake. I mean, it's like telling the American people or half the American people that don't agree with you they're all fools. That's just not true.

… new truths are often struck out by the collision of parties, in the eagerness of controversy, which otherwise would have lain hid, The divine disapprobation of a form of government by kings, I take to be one of this sort of truths.

…moderates were inexorably sucked into the vortexes of the sectional passions that led to the war. [American Civil War]

By 1860, a certain sense of inevitability had overtaken the nation. War seemed a foregone conclusion because there was no incentive to budge, to question one’s own righteousness, to create the grounds on which a compromise might occur.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say... It's like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They're all opinions.

My concern is that contention is becoming accepted as a way of life.

I've always known that there are conflicting issues going on where I'm from. It's always been that way.

Sometimes people have different views on different issues.

Politics is, by its nature, not my favorite thing because it's more about dividing people, not bringing them together.