Assuming Quotes - Page 34

• Why not simply honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility for problems, practice virtue without first demanding it of others, understand the highest truths yet retain an ordinary manner? That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery.

  Laozi

  Sister, Faith, Brother

  Laozi, Brian Browne Walker (1992). “Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I remember so clearly, in the early days, if I had to do a piece of press, they'd phone for me and say, 'Oh, we're going to bring hair and makeup, it'll take about five hours.' And I said, 'Well, if it was Ian McEwan, would it take about five hours? Would there be hair and makeup? Cause if that's not the case, then don't bring the hair and makeup.' So, it's fascinating that they just assume: it's a young woman, she must want to be photographed for five hours. She must have nothing better to do than delight in trying on all your shoes. But it's not the case.

  Zadie Smith

  Makeup, Phones, Hair

  4 Copy quote

• I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Enlargement, Notable, Constitution

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.3

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For myself the delay [in assuming the office of the President] may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.

  George Washington

  Ocean, Government, Skills

  Comment to General Henry Knox on the delay in assuming office, March 1789.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

  Margaret Atwood

  Lying, Book, Writing

  "Margaret Atwood : Writing Philosophy". Waterstone's Poetry Lecture, Delivered At Hay On Wye, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca. June 1995.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true.

  Elliott Smith

  Song, Thinking, Issues

  15 Copy quote

• Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.

  Stephan Pastis

  Fashion, People, Want

  45 Copy quote

• Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly planning for it, envisioning things that weren't the case. This was the working of the will. This was what gave the world purpose and direction. Not what was there but what was not.

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  People, Purpose, World

  4 Copy quote

• You see, in our family we don't know whether we're coming or going - it's all my grandmother's fault. But, of course, the fault wasn't hers at all: it lay in language. Every language assumes a centrality, a fixed and settled point to go away from and come back to, and what my grandmother was looking for was a word for a journey which was not a coming or a going at all; a journey that was a search for precisely that fixed point which permits the proper use of verbs of movement.

  Amitav Ghosh

  Grandmother, Journey, Going Away

  7 Copy quote

• I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

  Mark Van Doren

  Attitude, Hate, Mind

  10 Copy quote

• It is obvious: if you do not accept something that assumes the form of ‘destiny,’ you not only change its ‘natural laws’ but also the laws of the enemy playing the role of fate.

  Hannah Arendt

  Fate, Destiny, Law

  Hannah Arendt (2009). “The Jewish Writings”, p.223, Schocken

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Would Be, World

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Between past and future: eight exercises in political thought”, Viking Adult

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Believe, Men, Essence

  "The White House Years". Book by Henry Kissinger, 1979.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the war to come correspondents would assume unheard of importance, plunging through flame to feed the public its little gobbets of dehydrated excrement.

  Malcolm Lowry

  War, Flames, Littles

  Malcolm Lowry (2012). “Under the Volcano: A Novel”, p.223, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I mean a global warming advocate is as wrong as anybody could be about anything, folks. It's a hoax. There is no man-made global warming. It has been thoroughly debunked. The fact that it's a hoax has been proven, by them. E-mails that were uncovered at East Anglia University in Great Britain show that they worked together to perpetuate the hoax, that they lied about data, that they eliminate data that contradicted their political belief. So you'd have to assume from that that they are political advocates disguised as scientists who are purposely engaging in misinformation.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Mean, Men, Data

  4 Copy quote

• I recently enrolled at an elementary school and they accepted me. I am finally going to get revenge on those kids that beat me up as a boy, assuming they are still attending.

  Thom Yorke

  Revenge, School, Kids

  13 Copy quote

• Assume nothing, question everything.

  James Patterson

  Assume Nothing

  23 Copy quote

• When a judge assumes the power to decide which distinctions made in a statute are legitimate and which are not, he assumes the power to disapprove of any and all legislation, because all legislation makes distinctions

  Robert Bork

  Judging, Legislation, Made

  Robert H. Bork (2009). “The Tempting of America”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The successful leader must be willing
  to assume responsibility for the mistakes
  and the shortcomings of his followers.

  Napoleon Hill

  Mistake, Responsibility, Successful

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.94, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The soldiers feel that the Police are not serious with the criminal elements and that they are corrupt. The army had to come in and insist that criminals must be punished. It happens in all countries, there is a time when the army assumes the duty of internal security.

  Yoweri Museveni

  Country, Army, Police

  87 Copy quote

• If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity, but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application.

  Samuel Johnson

  Office, Advice, Vehemence

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1834). “Murphy's essay. The rambler. The adventurer. The idler. Rasselas. Tales of the imagination. Letters. Irene. Miscellaneous poems”, p.139

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mistake, Eye, Vanity

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.99

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.

  Samuel Johnson

  Regret, Hatred, Advice

  Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.131

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Love, Business, Stupid

  4 Copy quote

• Whether he likes it or not, [he] cannot remain incognito forever. He has outraged too many wise men and pleased too many fools to hide behind his too-appropriate order to assume leadership of the forces of stupidity he has marshalled, or his enemies will unmask him in order to better understand the disease that has produced such a warped and twisted mind.

  Orson Scott Card

  Leadership, Wise, Men

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “Ender's Game Boxed Set II: Ender's Game, Ender in Exile, Speak for the Dead”, p.157, Tor Science Fiction

  4 Copy quote

  Show source