Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own.
Jean Toomer

But ultimately what I was impressed by during my years in government was how much the intellectual climate and the prevailing intellectual notions constrained and represented the universe within which the discourse took place.
Lawrence Summers

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.
Christopher Columbus

I am pleased to be considered a 'denier' in this cause if this puts me in the class with those who defied prevailing 'scientific consensus' that the earth was flat and that the earth was the not the center of the universe.
William Lyons

I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads.
Grace Paley

I didn't do it because of the underlying greed that's prevailing, but it is about greed, doing the right thing at the right time using your clout when you have it and what for and what reason.
Danny DeVito

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
Bill Vaughan

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
Colin Powell

In my opinion the prevailing systems of education are all wrong, from the first stage to the last stage.
William Duane

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.
Dave Barry

It reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance.
Barry Commoner

Modern sociology is virtually an attempt to take up the larger program of social analysis and interpretation which was implicit in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, but which was suppressed for a century by prevailing interest in the technique of the production of wealth.
Albion W. Small

My father instilled in me the attitude of prevailing. If there's a challenge, go for it. If there's a wall to break down, break it down.
Donny Osmond

Not considering this opening worthy of more attention, I continued our pursuit to the Northwest, being desirous to embrace the advantages of the prevailing breeze.
George Vancouver

Nothing. We're all friends and friendly. So when the cameras go down, depending on the mood or the nature of the material we're dealing with, there's usually a kind of a prevailing light attitude that's floating around.
Richard Dean Anderson

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Plutarch

Questioning the nature and implications of liminal instances necessarily involves failure, if only in the specifically technical sense of entering spaces where prevailing criteria of success scarcely apply.
Brian Ferneyhough

The average music-lover hears only the production under prevailing conditions.
John Philip Sousa

The fact remains; chauvinism is prevailing.
Emma Bonino

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
H. L. Mencken