Assumption Quotes - Page 24

• The assumption that the egoless condition, or union of self and God, is man's final goal and ultimate destiny is a great mistake. My purpose here is to affirm that the unitive state is a hidden path in itself, a movement in its own right that ultimately leads to no-self (no true-self and no-union). In short, the unitive state is the hidden path to no-self.

  Bernadette Roberts

  Mistake, Destiny, Men

  Bernadette Roberts (1985). “The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center”, p.15, SUNY Press

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• The assumption that everything past is preserved holds good even in mental life only on condition that the organ of the mind has remained intact and that its tissues have not been damaged by trauma or inflammation. But destructive influences which can be compared to causes of illness like these are never lacking in the history of a city, even if it has had a less chequered past than Rome, and even if, like London, it has hardly ever suffered from the visitations of an enemy.

  Sigmund Freud

  Past, Rome, Cities

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• There’s an assumption that if someone writes in the first person it’s self-indulgent and self-regarding. I just look at it as a tool to understand the world and my experience in it. It’s not a tool to understand myself.

  Michael Pollan

  Writing, Self, World

  "Food Chains, Dead Zones, and Licensed Journalism". Interview with Russell Schoch, www.motherjones.com. February 4, 2005.

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• The modernists started with the assumption that science is the only source of sure knowledge, that nature is all there is, and thus that morality is merely a human invention that can be changed to meet changing circumstances in an evolving world.

  Charles Colson

  World, Morality, Invention

  Charles Colson, Nancy Pearcey (2011). “How Now Shall We Live?”, p.527, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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• The human mind shows an urge to capture into fixed forms through unreal assumptions, that is, fictions, that which is chaotic, always in flux, and incomprehensible. Serving this urge, the child quite generally uses a scheme in order to act and to find his way. We proceed much the same when we divide the earth by meridians and parallels, for only thus do we obtain fixed points which we can bring into a relationship with one another.

  Alfred Adler

  Children, Order, Mind

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• There's been more than one time when I've said something, and sort of the middle of what I've said is not said but thought, and therefore assumed to be understood, which is a ridiculous assumption on my part, but sometimes gets me in trouble.

  Howard Dean

  Ridiculous, Sometimes, Trouble

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• The assumption was that a calorie is a calorie. Nothing could be further from the truth. The food industry wants you to believe that because it works for them. If a calorie is a calorie, then why would you pick on any individual food stuff?

  Robert Lustig

  Believe, Want, Stuff

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• It is widely believed that interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness, yet the lives of creative individuals often seem to run counter to this assumption.

  Anthony Storr

  Running, Creative, Kind

  Anthony Storr (2015). “Solitude a Return to the Self”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• All of the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in the making of assumptions and taking things personally. The whole world of control between humans is based on that.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Drama, Sadness, World

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• Bitcoin seems to be a very promising idea. I like the idea of basing security on the assumption that the CPU power of honest participants outweighs that of the attacker. It is a very modern notion that exploits the power of the long tail.

  Hal Finney

  Ideas, Long, Bitcoin

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• Leadership, pure and simple, is the assumption of responsibility for the pursuit of excellence in group life.

  Philip Selznick

  Responsibility, Simple, Excellence

  Attributed to Selznick in "Everyone Leads" by Kobi Yamada, ‎Dan Zadra, ‎Steve Potter, 2003.

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• We are living in a time when the very integrity of the Constitution is being threatened daily, from federal bailouts to federal assumption of control over private business.

  David Limbaugh

  Integrity, Constitution, Bailouts

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• Karl Marx predicted the eventual withering away of the state and the 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' when the people would rule, which was sheer fantasy because it was sheer fantasy because it was based on grossly erroneous assumptions about human nature, as history would repeatedly demonstrate.

  David Limbaugh

  People, Fantasy, Human Nature

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• The promises of pie-in-the-sky liberal environmentalists that we can convert to 'clean' energy sources and stimulate our economy are based on dubious environmental and economic assumptions, fantastic notions about alternative energy, and a disturbing acceptance of the tyrannies inherent in command-control economies.

  David Limbaugh

  Acceptance, Sky, Pie

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• As you get older, the assumption is you get wiser. I try to earn it by not staying still, not resting on laurels. A lot of people in other professions are retired at my age. I care about music more than ever.

  Lorin Maazel

  People, Age, Trying

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• The assumption that everybody will figure out how much they have to save and then will just implement that plan is obviously preposterous.

  Richard Thaler

  Figures, Plans

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• I have a name for people who went to the extreme efficient market theory-which is "bonkers". It was an intellectually consistent theory that enabled them to do pretty mathematics. So I understand its seductiveness to people with large mathematical gifts. It just had a difficulty in that the fundamental assumption did not tie properly to reality.

  Charlie Munger

  Reality, Names, Ties

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• The assumption of perfect knowledge is very far from reality ... a lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional.

  George Soros

  Reality, Evil, Perfect

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• Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

  Doris Lessing

  Dog, Attitude, Real

  "Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" by Doris Lessing in "Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics of Political Correctness" edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips, 1994.

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• [Science fiction is] a specialized type of fantasy, in which the prime assumption usually is a new scientific discovery or invention.

  Jack Williamson

  Discovery, Fiction, Fantasy

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• Jesus smashed two of the rich young ruler's assumptions: Christianity is something you can ADD and something you can DO.

  Timothy Keller

  Jesus, Two, Add

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• Government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rest on capitalist assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Growth, Socialism

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• Arbitrary government power is being multiplied daily by the now practically unchallenged assumption that wherever there is any problem of any kind to be solved, government is the agency to step in and solve it.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Agency, Government, Arbitrary

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.183, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Hiding behind such sacred terms as human rights and distributive justice, politicians and intellectuals alike have perpetrated a gargantuan ruse on humankind: they have convinced us that mass homogeneity is more essential for the betterment of society than is individual initiative, and they have adorned this dubious assumption with assurances that by leveling all distinctions between human beings, collective peace and unity will result as a matter of course, just as water runs downhill or the cart follows the ox.

  Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora

  Running, Rights, Justice

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• Everything appears to me to be authored, in some strange way. And I wonder if this is not the spreading assumption of the psychedelic illusion/delusion/revelation that life is in fact art.

  Terence McKenna

  Art, Way, Facts

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