James Surowiecki Quotes

The people wish to be deceived; let them be deceived.

I think it's a mistake for the American public to constantly be told that if you work for an oil company or you work for a bank, that automatically makes you bad. I think a lot of these people are very qualified people who are patriots. They're going to want to help the country.

But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, We do not know.

I am prepared to maintain that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic and disintegrating force in society, that communities are held together and the progress of civilization made possible only by vigorous and sometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good.

Vaudeville could not vouch for the honesty, the integrity, or the mentality of the individuals who collectively made up the horde the medium embraced. All the human race demands of its members is that they be born. That is all vaudeville demanded. You just had to be born. You could be ignorant and be a star. You could be a moron and be wealthy. The elements that went to make up vaudeville were combed from the jungles, the four corners of the world, the intelligentsia and the subnormal.

The naked truth is still taboo.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.

Confessions may be good for the soul but they are bad for the reputation.

We're just very belligerent, and I'm not trying to put Americans down, by and large I think we're nice people, but we operate with the information we're given and we are limited by the ignorance that is kind of injected into the media and into the TV shows.

TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.

Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.

If you attempt to beat a man down and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary, as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them.

A little integrity is better than any career.

I was like, "Oh my god, I hope you're secretly grossed out about everything that [Donald] Trump has been doing." But why is it such a shock to anybody? He's said so many things that show who he is and how ignorant he is from the beginning.

What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

Fools lie, clever men stick to the truth.

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things.

You're all just pissing in the wind. You don't know it, but you are.

Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief -- resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.

I speak the truth but I guess that's a foreign language to ya'll!

If I wanted to make over my image, I could have given 10,000 interviews in the last 10 years. I haven't done anything wrong that I need to make up for. I am what I am in front of the world.

A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being 'frank'.

But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.