Unconventional Wisdom Quotes

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

It is true that everything has been said, but not everyone has said it.

As a writer, I tend to be drawn to marginal people - writers, poet-prophets, seers, eccentrics - who embody the deeper ambivalences of their societies and bear deeper witness to their world than the famous figures we are used to celebrating, or demonizing, in our histories.

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

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.

The masses are always wrong...Wisdom is doing everything the crowd does not do. All you do is reverse the totality of their learning and you have the heaven they're looking for.

Watch what everyone else does--do the opposite. The majority is always wrong.

Everything has been said but not everyone has yet said it.

I've had great success being a total idiot.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world--and never will.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

Common sense is a vastly overrated virtue. I myself prefer the spark of genius.

Please don't ask me for the actual answer to anything, because I don't have it. Because all I do is look at stuff and ask questions. What can I say? I just think the world's barking mad. Look, I'm not an expert. I'm just an ordinary person.

… an Attila educated by Machiavelli

How terribly downright must be the utterances of storms and earthquakes to those accustomed to the soft hypocrisies of society.

I am continually embarrassed by people who point me out as an example of what can be done without training.

Don't listen to anybody. Nobody knows the magic bullet. If they did, they'd sell it and make a fortune. Follow your gut. Follow your instincts. Every once in a while, take a chance.

I can't tear up a poem and be a sound bite for you. Why is that so hard for anyone to understand?

The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.

Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.

I just don't want to stop finding things interesting. I don't want to ever stop learning. I want to be a weird encyclopedia of bizarre knowledge.

It doesn't make any sense... that's why I trust it!