Presumption Quotes

• Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

  Golda Meir

  Fall, Hair, Mark

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• I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Lord Acton

  Kings, Power, Men

  Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 April 1887, in Louise Creighton 'Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton' (1904) vol. 1, ch. 13.

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• Despair ruins some, presumption many.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Despair, Ruins

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.62, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Ignorance is the mother of presumption

  Marie de Gournay

  Mother, Ignorance

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• Presumption first blinds a man, then sets him a running.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Wise, Running, Wisdom

  Benjamin Franklin (1987). “Poor Richard's Almanack: Being the Choicest Morsels of Wisdom, Written During the Years of the Almanack's Publication”, p.41, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed.

  Saint Augustine

  Arrogance, Together, May

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• There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Events, Assuming

  Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

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• A presumption of any fact is, properly, an inferring of that fact from other facts that are known; it is an act of reasoning; and much of human knowledge on all subjects is derived from this source.

  Tony Abbott

  Facts, Source, Humans

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• It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption, too, after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all.

  Heinrich Heine

  Beautiful, Vanity, Earth

  Heinrich Heine (1998). “Journey to Italy”, Marsilio Pub

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• The only barrier to truth is the presumption that you already have it.

  Chuck Missler

  Truth Is, Barriers

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• We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.

  Tom Stoppard

  Inspirational, Memories, Eye

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.61, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Stupid, Thinking, Crowds

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• Pause and remember - Making the wrong assumptions causes pain and suffering for everyone.

  Jennifer Young

  Pain, Suffering, Awakening

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• People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

  Barney Frank

  Presumption Of Innocence, People, Entitled

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• Evolution has long been the target of illogical arguments that use presumption.

  Marilyn vos Savant

  Long, Target, Use

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• But most it is presumption in us when the help of heaven we count the act of men.

  William Shakespeare

  Angel, Men, Heaven

  William Shakespeare, Thomas Dolby (1832). “The Shakespearian Dictionary, Forming a General Index to All the Popular Expressions, and Most Striking Passages in the Works of Shakespeare, from a Few Words to Fifty Or More Lines ... By T. Dolby”, p.260

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• Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.

  Thomas Paine

  Vanity, Age, Generations

  Thomas Paine (1996). “Rights of Man”, p.9, Wordsworth Editions

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• Most of my presumptions about a production are usually wrong.

  Steven Spielberg

  Productions

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The perverse presumption that places the burden of proof on the challenger of spending must be inverted, back to the rule that applies elsewhere in life: 'Prove to me why we should.

  Mitch Daniels

  Burden Of Proof, Should, Spending

  Keynote Speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee, delivered 11 February 2011, Ronald Reagan Centennial Dinner, Washington, D.C.

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• Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.

  Benjamin Banneker

  Sight, African American, Challenges

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• It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

  James Thurber

  Food, Wine, Thinking

  Cartoon caption, New Yorker, 27 Mar. 1937

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• God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

  Herodotus

  Suffering, Doe

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• The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational Love, Arrogant, Demand

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• This is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave.

  Dee Dee Myers

  Government, Presumption Of Innocence, Generations

  "Dee Dee Myers : Press Secretary to an Administration Full of Talkers". Interview with Thomas B. Rosenstiel, articles.latimes.com. March 20, 1994.

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• Our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Taken, People

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “Christian Reflections”, p.12, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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