Unanimity Quotes

“Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“As uncomfortable as it might be, I refuse to let the comfort of being agreed with suffocate my opinions.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. . . . Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
― Robert H. Jackson

“We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Sometimes people can be negative, especially about my confidence. I trust myself, I refuse to obey, and I noticed there is a need to punish me for it. But haters are important because they show you you're doing something right. I'm scared of unanimity, artists who everybody likes. When you speak your mind and you're loud, you will attract negativity. But I have thick skin, I think the fact that I was severely bullied in my childhood helped me build strength and believe in my artistic vision. I deal with rejection very well. I have a lifelong vision and an unbreakable spirit.”
― Nuno Roque

“A high self-esteem having artist works hard to be understood. A low self-esteem having artist works hard to be agreed with.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“To leave a man's ego bigger, retweet him. To leave his faculty of reasoning better, challenge his tweet.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, everyday, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.”
― Christopher Morley

“My professor, he reminded us of Kant: to think by oneself, to think in accordance with oneself. Today they say that's logocentric, not politically correct. Streams must flow in the right direction so that they may converge. Why all this cultural bustling? Just to assure oneself that everyone is speaking of the same thing. Of what? Of Otherness.”
― Jean-François Lyotard, Postmodern Fables

“When everyone says the same thing about some complex topic, what should come to your mind is, 'wait a minute, nothing can be that simple, something's wrong.' That's the immediate light that should go off in your brain when you ever hear unanimity on some complex topic." (The Ezra Klein Show 2021/04/23)”
― Noam Chomsky

“You're too much a man of your time, Jack, and that's the worst thing to be, because it's hard if you always feel other people's suffering, there's no room for manoeuver when everyone agrees and sees things the same way and gives importance to the same things, and the same things are deemed serious or insignificant. There's no light, no breathing space, no ventilation in unanimity, nor in shared commonplaces. You have to escape from that in order to live better, more comfortably. More honestly too, without feeling trapped in the time in which you were born and in which you'll die, there's nothing more oppressive, nothing so clouds the issue as that particular stamp.”
― Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear / Dance and Dream / Poison, Shadow, and Farewell