Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.
The general consensus seems to be that I don't act at all.
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
I've always thought that it's good to watch the news to find out what everybody else is looking at and believing, if only because that's how consensus is constructed.
The Obama administration's attempted short-term fixes, even with unprecedented monetary easing by the Federal Reserve, produced average GDP growth of just 2.2% over the past three years, and the consensus outlook appears no better for the year ahead.
I can't think of anything worse, really, than to try to live up to someone else's expectations of what you should be. You don't make art by consensus.
I think it's really, really important to grow the consensus and to realize that there is always some value that can be shared with another American, on any issue. Starting from those points of common belief and shared values is very, I think, important to forging the consensus that allows these issues to more forward.
There's a bit of debate about that; some say it was really Matthew, but the popular consensus is that Mark was the first one, so that's why I did that one first. And I was planning on doing all four.
After a week of back and forth, and forth and back over firearms, it's good to see a consensus developing on this common-sense amendment to keep handguns away from children.
It's an embarrassment that we don't have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously.
There is no consensus, there is no homogeneity, there is no truth.
But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.
For we can affirm with a good conscience that we have, after reading the Holy Scripture, applied ourselves and yet daily apply ourselves to the extent that the grace of the Lord permits to inquiry into and investigation of the consensus of the true and purer antiquity.
Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.
But I think it's very key that there's a plan for Haiti. And we have to begin to - as progressives and people who are concerned about Haiti and have been concerned about Haiti, we have to begin to build some sort of consensus, a movement around the Haiti that the Haitians envision.
Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.
Everyone tries to talk you out of going to college. The consensus being that people are just gonna forget about you, you know, and that's the way the business works.
Israelis and Palestinians are suspicious of each other and of promises from outside. But the need for a negotiated solution between the parties should not stymie international clarity and consensus about the endgame in terms of borders and other issues.
If we had a consensus we wouldn't have to go to a referendum.
America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.
Republicans can't always agree on where to cut spending. They certainly can't agree on what to do about entitlements. There isn't a unified foreign policy vision, and there's no consensus on immigration reform.
Up until 'Bridesmaids', the general consensus was that women preferred comedy a bit softer.
A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.
Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
In this context, social consensus, and institutions that embody this consensus, must be made effective in order for democratization not to be abused as a provisional instrument to establish an anti-democratic regime.
Over the last decade, economists seemed to share a broad consensus about economic policy, with the old splits between monetarists and Keynesians apparently being settled by events. But the Great Recession of the last two years has changed everything.
Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Reforming public education, cutting property taxes, fixing adult and child protective services and funding our budget can all occur when Democrats and Republicans engage in consensus and cooperation - not cynicism and combat.
A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.
In my view, there is an urgent need to communicate with the public and help to explain where there is consensus, and where are there doubts about the issues of sustainable development.
And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.
Consensus wisdom has it that all modern commercial fantasy novels fall into two camps: those derived from J.R.R. Tolkien and those derived from Mervyn Peake. The 'Lord of the Rings' template or the 'Gormenghast' mold.
The key to any successful plan is buy-in from the public, and what this process has demonstrated is the importance of including citizens in formulating a consensus plan that preserves our beautiful refuge.
It is essential that policy instruments be developed that would firmly establish democratization on the basis of social consensus and enable transformation on stable grounds.
By the early 1960s, there was a moral consensus on what needed to be done on civil rights.
