Consensus Quotes

In any area of the U.N. we... have to agree on certain language that can represent the same spirit, but that can be accepted by everyone.

The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.

It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.

We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists

In economics, the majority is always wrong.

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

I think my faith as a Muslim is very important. One of the core values is that you are always trying to build consensus. So when it comes to figuring out if something is permissible or not in Islam, it's usually a discussion, and people have to come to a consensus in order for something to be approved.

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

When men understand what each other mean, they see for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.

… the difficulty in bringing our people to agree upon it has ever discouraged me.

When you have 435 people who are opinionated... sometimes agreeing on things is difficult.

The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

When John Kerry and Zell Miller and George Bush can agree on an issue, you know it's got legs.

The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor.

I think it is important that religious leaders of all kinds consciously attempt to distinguish between issues of natural law on which there is consensus among Catholic, Protestant, and Jew and those issues on which there must be a greater degree of tolerance of other peoples' opinions and of the diversity that is characteristic of American society.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

Unlike Washington, the California legislature has proved that cooperation is both possible and essential to successful policymaking, while stubborn absolutism will have you trailing head lice in popularity polls.

Reasonable, sensible men can always make a reasonable scheme appear such to other reasonable men.

I mean, you know, this idea that somebody we disagree with on economic or social policy or something we have to turn into some kind of ogre or demon, I think, is a mistake. I mean, it's like telling the American people or half the American people that don't agree with you they're all fools. That's just not true.

Critical for moving from polarization to productivity is that the Wikipedians who write these articles aren't actually focused on finding the truth. They're working for something that's a little bit more attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now. And after seven years there, I actually believe that they're onto something, that for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth, and seeking to convince others of the truth, isn't necessarily the best place to start. In fact, I think our reverence for the truth might have become a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. Dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The president doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground.