Armand Hammer Quotes

The best opportunities are often ones where you're being contrarian. That doesn't mean being contrarian for contrarian's sake, but it means you're thoughtful about the risks of following the crowd.

Thinking about how disturbingly herdlike people become in so many different contexts - mimetic theory forces you to think about that, which is knowledge that's generally suppressed and hidden. As an investor-entrepreneur, I've always tried to be contrarian, to go against the crowd, to identify opportunities in places where people are not looking.

But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.

I don't like gurus. I don't like people who ask you to follow or believe. I like people who ask you to think independently.

I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

Entrepreneurs are like cats, because they are independent and do their own thing. Although organisations say they like cats, what they really want is sheep that they can herd.

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

If you want to be told what to think, well, I'm not in that business.

Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society…

If there’s such a thing as a thousand percent isolationist, I’m that.

There is sort of a hobbit-like element to a lot of British people. They don't want to be told something until they have worked it out for themselves.

I've never really hired anybody that people thought I should hire.

I could never understand the herd mentality. I have always fought to do things my way and have stuck to that.

Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel, if one buys a Keith Haring, two hundred Keith Harings will be sold.

Many of those engaged in a lemming-like march to the sea are proud of their individualism.

Not that I wish to give you any ammunition, but the sad fact of it is-most men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will follow. And didn't you say you wished to be married?' 'Not to someone who follows you as the lead sheep.

If everyone thinks one way, it is likely to be wrong. If you can figure out that it is wrong, you are likely to make a lot of money.

Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth, and they shun those whose sole concern is not the truth.

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another.

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

A pack of lemmings looks like a group of rugged individualists compared with Wall Street when it gets a concept in its teeth.