I encouraged all my subordinate commanders and staff to feel free to argue with me. My guidance was simple: “Disagree with me, do it with feeling, try to convince me you are right and I am about to go down the wrong path. You owe that to me; that’s why you are here. But don’t be intimidated when I argue back. A moment will come when I have heard enough and I make a decision. At that very instant, I expect all of you to execute my decision as if it were your idea. Don’t damn the decision with faint praise, don’t mumble under your breath — we now all move out together to get the job done.

Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.

Strong opinions aren’t free. You’ll turn some people off. They’ll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That’s life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one’s upset by what you’re saying, you’re probably not pushing hard enough. (And you’re probably boring, too.)

In business, as in politics, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority. The businessman who moves counter to the tide of prevailing opinion must expect to be obstructed, derided and damned.

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.

Steve Jobs when he was asked to address the graduating class at Stanford: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Do What Steve Jobs Did, Not What He Said

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.

When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ...Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

you will know that it is a more difficult work to reject the opinion of others than to establish your own.

"One of Job's business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. " If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will," he said. So even though an Iphone might cannibalize sales of an IPod, or an IPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him."

What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.

In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.