Assumption Quotes - Page 33

• You never know what curve balls life is going to throw you and there's no way I can predict anything or make any assumptions about what the rest of my life is going to be like.

  Carrie Underwood

  Curves, Balls, Way

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• I realized in the early days I just didn't edit at all. But I think you become a little more cagey with your lyrics when you know more people are going to hear them and make assumptions about you as a person. Realizing that, you want to be a little more opaque.

  Eddie Vedder

  Thinking, People, Opaque

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• Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.

  Julian Baggini

  Lazy, Different, Hue

  "Great minds don't think alike" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. August 4, 2008.

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• There is this absurd assumption that the revitalisation of the public sphere is always a good thing. I think people tend to confuse 'civic' and 'civil,' and they believe that everything that is done by citizens is necessarily a good thing because you build a network, an association.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Believe, Thinking, People

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• Since the dawn of the Internet, I have always operated under the assumption that if the government or corporations have technological capability to do something, they are doing it - whatever the laws we happen to know about might say.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Government, Law, Dawn

  "NSA's phone snooping a different kind of creepy" by Douglas Rushkoff, www.cnn.com. June 6, 2013.

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• The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).

  Michel Foucault

  Thinking, Intelligent, Political Will

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• Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.

  Adrienne Rich

  Eye, Self, Survival

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  Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

  Herman Melville

  Inspirational, Learning, Knowledge

  Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.296, Northwestern University Press

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• Perhaps, in the extravagance of youth, we give away our devotions easily and all but arbitrarily, on the mistaken assumption that we’ll always have more to give.

  Michael Cunningham

  Giving, Extravagance, Youth

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• Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.

  Marilyn French

  Order, Years, People

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• It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Jesus, Expectations, Engagement

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• Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives -- but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions -- which is a philosophical activity -- is morally as well as intellectually important.

  Karl Popper

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Character

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• A critical assumption is sometimes made that [Grisham, Clancey, Crichton & myself] have access to some mystical vulgate that other (and often better) writers cannot find or will not deign to use. I doubt if this is true. Nor do I believe the contention of some popular novelists... that thier success is based on literary merit -- that the public understands true greatness in ways the tight-a**ed, consumed-by-jealousy literary establishment cannot. This idea is ridiculous, a product of vanity and insecurity.

  Stephen King

  Believe, Greatness, Ideas

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• The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Truth, Errors, Discovery

  "Prejudices: Third Series". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1922.

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• You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to him employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which h allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.

  C. S. Lewis

  Religious, Feelings, Doubt

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• It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.

  Trevanian

  Fun, Opportunity, Justice

  Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.137, Broadway Books

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• Because European countries now resolve differences through negotiation and consensus, there's sometimes an assumption that the entire world functions in the same way. But let us never forget ... beyond Europe's borders, in a world where oppression and violence are very real, liberation is still a moral goal, and freedom and security still need defenders.

  George W. Bush

  Country, Real, Europe

  Whitehall Palace Address on Iraq Policy, delivered 19 November 2003, Whitehall Palace -- London, England

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• As the surface of the seashore rocks were pitted by by the waves and gathered limpets that further disguised what lay beneath, so time made truth of what appeared to be. The days that passed, in becoming weeks, still did not disturb the surface an assumption had created. The weather of a beautiful summer continued with neither sign nor hint that credence had been misplaced. The single sandal found among the rocks became a sodden image of death; and as the keening on the pier at Kilauran traditionally marked distres brought by the sea, so did silence at Lahardane.

  William Trevor

  Beautiful, Summer, Rocks

  William Trevor (2011). “The Story of Lucy Gault”, p.36, Penguin UK

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• Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.

  Eoin Colfer

  Life, Fowl, Fairy

  Eoin Colfer (2001). “Artemis Fowl”

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• Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive.

  Stephen Kendrick

  Believe, Moving, People

  Alex Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick (2013). “The Love Dare”, p.33, B&H Publishing Group

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• The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Positive, Philosophical, Compassion

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.8, Publishdrive

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• We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.

  Wendell Berry

  Effort, Would Be, World

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• I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Choices, Police, Mind

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• Love can only consist in failure...on the fallacious assumption that it is a relationship. But it is not. It is a production of truth.

  Alain Badiou

  Productions

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• The assumption that rigidly rejecting words and phrases that have existed for centuries will have much impact on public attitudes is rather dubious.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Attitude, Impact, Dubious

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2009). “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness”, p.180, Vintage

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