Adam Grant Quotes

More than anything else, we need in this society the opportunity for people to tell us what they think without being told that they're either dumb, or stupid, or uninformed.

You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.

And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

The goal of higher education should be to champion the airing of all honest viewpoints. Nothing less is acceptable.

We don’t need to ban bad ideas. We just need to criticize bad ideas.

Men must also be allowed the publication of their opinions, if this be done with decency and seriousness, for the learned can have no right to say that they are in possession of the truth, still less can the unlearned, unless every grave man can offer his opinions, be they what they may…

We should not live in fear, we should all enjoy being able to express our views freely and openly, challenge each other on issues.

If people feel strongly and passionately about something, I'll let them speak strongly and passionately - I'm not going to tell them not to.

It's not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions... even if you ask a question and agree with the answer.

Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.

A thinking partner who isn't an echo chamber... How many of us dare to have such collaborators?

What the nation's built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can't discuss anything. If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized. If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.

People always have an opinion. Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's wrong, but we have to respect their opinion.

The simple truth is that everyone has an opinion, everyone has the right to voice it, and they should if they want to.

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you.

I'm a big believer in debate and difference of opinion.

I'm constantly asking for alternative views on most things that come to me.

The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.

I don’t expect anyone to just sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.

A university is supposed to show you ideas that offend you and make you feel uncomfortable,

You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.

I think it's important to have conversation about things instead of shutting things down.

Not all ideas will be accepted, but every idea deserves its own space, and every idea deserves to be expressed.

If you can get really good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.