Noreena Hertz Quotes

I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions.

I get a sense that we've all been educated into one school of thought. I'm not surprised at all to find among the overwhelming majority of scientists, are people who would hold one particular view because that's all they're exposed to.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

Most people live their life around what other people do.

Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!

The common person fears to think beyond the common.

Better be wrong with the many than right with the few.

Men are herd animals, and prefer to go with the flow, especially when moving in the other direction is harsh.

In our "age of the expert" the expert has his constituency — those who have a vested interest in commonly held opinions; elaborating and defining the consensus at a high level has, after all, made him an expert.

Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them. This invisible pressure is more difficult to stand against than individual tyranny.

The human race is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it.

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.

Popular opinion is the biggest 'filter' for most people - they don't have to try something if they've already been told it's not cool.

We all feel the urge to conform; it is the most normal of human desires.

Status quo just means that everyone's doing it. It doesn't mean that this was divinely ordained, and of course this is the right decision.

I was a bandwagon jumper. If everybody in high school listened to it, so did I.

Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they're much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren't top of mind.

Trends die. That's the natural thing about a trend. It's natural for people to be followers and be sheep and go with a trend.

I don't like it when people spout about the popular opinion just to make it louder.

Online, you're trying to appeal to everyone and people who you don't know at the same time. So I think, as a side effect, it amplifies the desire for groupthink.

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.

There are many people for whom 'thinking' necessarily means identifying with existing trends.

We were born in this society, we grew up in this society. And we learn to be like everyone else, playing nonsense all the time.