Robert Christensen > Robert's Quotes

“when someone is not leading you, then you lead them. You pick up the slack for their weakness. My leader doesn’t want to come up with a plan? That’s okay. I will. My leader doesn’t want to give a brief? That’s fine. I will. My leader doesn’t want to mentor the younger troops? That’s okay. I will do it. My leader doesn’t want to take the blame when something goes wrong? That’s fine with me. I’m going to take the blame. And you have to think about that one. That one can be tricky because you think to yourself, “If I take the blame, I’m going to look bad. I’m going to look bad in front of the team and in front of the more senior boss—my weak boss’s boss.” But think about it from a leader’s perspective. Let’s say the mission was a failure, and the boss comes in to find out what happened. Listen to the way this situation plays out: I’m the guy that was in charge of the mission and I say, “Sorry, boss, we failed. But it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault,” and I point the finger at someone else. Now imagine that the guy I pointed the finger at says, “Yes. It was my fault. Here’s what happened. Here are the mistakes I made. And here is what I am going to do to fix the situation next time.” Who does the senior boss respect more? The guy who blamed someone or the guy who took responsibility—the guy that took ownership? Of course, it is the guy that takes ownership of”
― Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

“People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
― Bill Watterson, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book

“Always remember... Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics

“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain

“To every rule there is an exception—and an idiot ready to demonstrate it. Don't be the one!”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“I'm fairly certain YOLO is just Carpe Diemm for stupid people.”
― Jack Black

“If you have the power to change the world for the better, you should do it. That's why people who do nothing are idiots, but idiots who do nothing are life-savers.”
― James McGregor

“The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.”
― William Hazlitt

“You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
― Noam Chomsky

“In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.”
― William Penn

“If you have to say or do something controversial, aim so that people will hate that they love it and not love that they hate it.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.”
― Ron Paul

“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
― John F. Kennedy

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”
― Denis Diderot

“Specifically, I’d like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it’s less wasteful.”
― Bill Watterson

“Do what you gotta do so you can do what you wanna do.”
― Denzel Washington

“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
― Joseph Joubert

“The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.”
― Stephen Jay Gould

“In fact, the more each person can remove his or her ego from the discussion and focus on the subject matter, the more fruitful the conversation will be for all involved.”
― Matthew Kelly, The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved

“Comparing penis sizes is a much more nuanced and sophisticated way to determine who’s right than something as clunky and uncouth as a debate.”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

“Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.”
― James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.”
― Henry Miller

“I'm very depressed how in this country you can be told "That's offensive" as though those two words constitute an argument.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Those who, in debate, appeal to their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“The idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to.”
― John Cleese

“The purpose of debates is to explore issues, not end them.”
― David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow

“If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. That we should regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence; but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary’s right. The way out of this difficulty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a correct judgment. For this a man would have to think before he spoke. But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied by loquacity and innate dishonesty. They speak before they think; and even though they may afterwards perceive that they are wrong, and that what they assert is false, they want it to seem thecontrary. The interest in truth, which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false, and what is false must seem true.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Always Being Right

“The love of conflict is most evident when opposing forces join sides to defeat the peacemaker.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy