Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It's really counterintuitive.
Watch what everyone else does--do the opposite. The majority is always wrong.
I've had great success being a total idiot.
The words of truth are always paradoxical.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first.
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.
Nothing is so obvious that it's obvious.
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.
It doesn't make any sense... that's why I trust it!
One of the greatest investments of our lifetime has been New York City real estate, and investors made the highest returns when they bought stuff during the 1970s and 1980s when people were getting mugged. The lesson is that you make the most money when you buy stuff that's out of consensus.
Thus it is that "Some things are increased by being diminished, others are diminished by being increased." What others have taught, I also teach; verily, I will make it the root of my teaching.
Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
Nature is actually unnatural
When people come to KO me, that's when I catch them off-guard and get the KO myself.
...Sean Penn claimed to be 'serv[ing] the country' by giving aid and comfort to an enemy about to be attacked by the US. He said it made him feel more patriotic to dissent from the war aims of his nation. It is at least a counterintuitive position. Most people would not instantly grasp how it is more patriotic to always root against America. White supremacists should try claiming that burning crosses is more supportive of civil rights than not burning them.
The insecure way is the secure way.
It's a little counterintuitive to people, that doing what people don't expect ends up being what people do expect. But that is true of Mac.
The superfluous is the most necessary.
The principal barrier to a general acceptance of the monist position is that it is counterintuitive.
The truth often sounds paradoxical.
Everything about it was wrong. Thats why it worked so good.
I've done that my whole life - I've taken the way people think and turned it on its head.
