Challenging Conventional Wisdom Quotes

If someone gives you so-called good advice, do the opposite; you can be sure it will be the right thing nine out of 10 times.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

We not only went after some sacred cows, we went after the whole herd.

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.

To overturn orthodoxy is no easier in science than in philosophy, religion, economics, or any of the other disciplines through which we try to comprehend the world and the society in which we live.

While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.

We need people to point out groupthink - We need people to point out stale, old, dumb thinking - and we sometimes need to do that when it's considered dangerous, strange, or, by some, offensive. And we should be, all of us, trying to protect that. It's really important.

When I started Chipotle, I didn't know the fast-food rules. People told us the food was too expensive and the menu was too limited. Neither turned out to be true.

We have been doing things that are contrary; the things that people tell us won't work from the beginning. In fact, the only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.

The reason people like the Young Turks is because we say things you're not allowed to say in Washington that are obviously true.

And took for truth the test of ridicule.

The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.

If the past is any guide our [current] beliefs will be wrong as our past beliefs have been wrong.

All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom.

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.

Whether that's questioning the dominant opinion of the day, the conventional wisdom of the day, or whether it's questioning the policies that come out of Washington, or out of our government, generally, I think media's job is to look at it and say, "What's really going on here? What's the story behind what you see?"

Einstein was a great advocate of the notion that good ideas look absurd at the beginning. Camus expressed a similar view.

In every respect the burden is hard on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate well as unusually capable if they obtain a hearing at all.

One of the challenges of innovation is challenging a set model. A traditional way to manufacture footwear existed for hundreds of years. Now we have a whole new way.

Never assume the obvious is true.

Everyone talks about, 'Get your foot in the door,' but I never understood that mentality. Why would I want to go in that house? Why not build my own house? Why not take a chair and smash a window?

You can have an idea that everyone else thinks is dumb, and it's still a good idea.

There will always be people saying things can't be done. And history shows that time and time again things 'couldn't be done' and they were done.

There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so'.

I like to have something that I can challenge common-sense notions about, challenge the apparent truths, and really look past the many faces of a thing to see what's behind it.