James Madison Quotes

How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking clearly.

When your opinions start to coincide with those of the majority, it is time to reconsider your opinions.

Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

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

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

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.

For a crowd to be smart, the people in it need to be not only diverse in their perspectives but also, relatively speaking, independent of each other. In other words, you need people to be thinking for themselves, rather than following the lead of those around them.

Notwithstanding this high Ecclesiastical authority, he who dared accept truth only because it could be proved, or proved to be good, and disregard authority, was commonly stigmatized as an infidel.

Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance.

I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, 'I better reexamine my position!' I probably believe that the worst opinions in my court have been unanimous. Because there's nobody on the other side pointing out all the flaws.

The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

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.

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

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

When everyone is unanimous, I wonder whether they are right…. George, at every meeting henceforth I want you to make the most cogent and articulate argument against the war and I will never stop you.

When a man can take a poll and tell what everybody is thinking, that means nobody is really thinking anymore.

Where all think alike, none thinks very much.

It is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

I have a suspicion of lockstep and everyone looking in the same direction: that's a key character trait in me.