Assumption Quotes - Page 35

• But it is much later in the game now, and ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.

  Neil Postman

  Ignorance, Technology, Simple

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.130, Penguin

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• Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat.

  Neal Stephenson

  Add, Saws, Idiot

  Neal Stephenson (2009). “Cryptonomicon”, p.26, Harper Collins

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• Individuals who want to believe that there is no fulfillment in love, that true love does not exist, cling to these assumptions because this despair is actually easier to face than the reality that love is a real fact of life but is absent from their lives.

  Bell Hooks

  Real, Believe, Love Is

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• A tornado of thought is unleashed after each new insight. This in turn results in an earthquake of assumptions. These are natural disasters that re-shape the spirit.

  Vera Nazarian

  Earthquakes, Shapes, Tornadoes

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• When I was raped I lost my virginity and almost lost my life. I also discarded certain assumptions I had held about how the world worked and about how safe I was.

  Alice Sebold

  World, Safe, Lost

  Alice Sebold (2009). “Lucky”, p.247, Pan Macmillan

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• It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.

  Tim Ferriss

  Inspirational, Sacrifice, Years

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• Our entire society is based on discontent. People wanting more and more and more. Being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their décor, their clothes, everything – taking it for granted that that’s the whole point of life. Never to be satisfied. If you are perfectly happy with what you got, especially if what you got isn’t even all the spectacular then you’re dangerous. You’re breaking all the rules. You’re undermining the sacred economy. You’re challenging every assumption that society is built on.

  Tana French

  Home, Clothes, People

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• The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.

  Steven Pinker

  Rights, People, Desire

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.48, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Hearts, you say? You Humans are always so quick to speak of such things. As though you carry your hearts in the very palms of your hands. But this eye of mine perceives all. There is nothing that it overlooks. If this eye cannot see a thing, then it does not exist. That is the assumption under which I have always fought. What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there?

  Tite Kubo

  Heart, Eye, Hands

  "Fictional character: Ulquiorra Cifer". "Bleach" manga, Chapter 317, page 20, 2001 - 2016.

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• There are few times when we know with absolute certainty we are going to do something for the last time. Life has a way of moving in circles, bringing us back to places we didn’t expect and taking us away from those we do. There are too many times we don’t pay close enough attention, and moments are lost in our assumption we’ll have another chance.

  Megan Hart

  Moving, Circles, Another Chance

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• What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Dream, Depressing, People

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.31, Publishdrive

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• The first thing to understand about nutritionism is that it is not the same thing as nutrition. As the "-ism" suggests, it is not a scientific subject but an ideology. Ideologies are ways of organizing large swaths of life and experience under a set of shared but unexamined assumptions. This quality makes an ideology particularly hard to see, at least while it's still exerting its hold on your culture. A reigning ideology is a little like the weather--all pervasive and so virtually impossible to escape. Still, we can try.

  Michael Pollan

  Weather, Trying, Quality

  Michael Pollan (2008). “In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto”, p.28, Penguin

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• Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds

  Thomas Hardy

  Perfect, Deeds, Grew

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Far from the Madding Crowd: Works of Hardy”, p.83, 谷月社

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• All reined up in old language and old assumptions, straining to jump clean-hoofed on to a whole new track of being I only suspect is there. I can't see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I can't jump because the bit forbids it, and my own basic force - my horsepower, if you like - is too little.

  Peter Shaffer

  Average, Track, Littles

  Peter Shaffer (2011). “Equus”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Pain, War, Differences

  Mohsin Hamid (2007). “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, p.168, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• She laughed out loud, a warm, knowing laughter that made me once again wonder about the secret ingredient in these women’s lives. Whatever it was, I was clearly missing it. It was so much more than just self-confidence; it seemed to be the ability to love oneself, enthusiastically and unsparingly, body and soul, naturally followed by the assumption that every man on the planet is dying to get in on the act.

  Anne Fortier

  Laughter, Self Confidence, Men

  Anne Fortier (2012). “Juliet (Random House Reader's Circle Deluxe Reading Group Edition): A Novel”, p.168, Ballantine Books

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• The assumption that you everyone else is like you. That you are the world. The disease of consumer capitalism. The complacent solipsism.

  David Foster Wallace

  World, Disease, Like You

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• If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don't tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don't understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Believe, Mean, Needs

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• It was possible, maybe, to have facts in your mind that weren't facts at all. You could build a whole life's story on false assumptions. You could make truths out of untruths and untruths out of truths. Until you spoke them, really said them out loud or checked for sure, you may not have known which were which.

  Deb Caletti

  Mind, Stories, May

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• He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.

  Richard Wright

  Blood, Long, Suffering

  Richard Wright (1957). “Native Son”, p.277, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

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• there was an assumption that I was personally attacking Sarah Palin by impersonating her on TV. No one ever said it was 'mean' when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford falling down all the time. No one ever accused Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond or Dan Aykroyd of 'going too far' in their political impressions. You see what I'm getting at here. I am not mean and Mrs. Palin is not fragile. To imply otherwise is a disservice to us both.

  Tina Fey

  Fall, Mean, Here I Am

  "She's the Boss: Tina Fey on Sarah Palin, Sexism, and More" by Sheila Marikar, abcnews.go.com. April 5, 2011.

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• The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society.

  Michelle Alexander

  Fate, People, Justice

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.16, The New Press

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• We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhist, Reality, Two

  Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.26, Shambhala Publications

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• Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.

  Peter Singer

  Philosophy, Believe, Thinking

  Peter Singer (1986). “Applied Ethics”, p.225, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Our enemy is fear. Blinding, reason-killing fear. Fear consumes the truth and poisons all the evidence, leading us to false assumptions and irrational conclusions.

  Rick Yancey

  Enemy, Poison, Killing

  "The Monstrumologist". Book by Rick Yancey, September 22, 2009.

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