Presumption Quotes - Page 3

• Every doer of the law and every moral worker is accursed, for he walketh in the presumption of his own righteousness.

  Martin Luther

  Law, Scary, Doers

  Martin Luther, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Tischer, Samuel Simon Schmucker (1860). “A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians”, p.349

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Presumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Disease, Obstinate

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.154

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• To say that an idea is necessary is simply to affirm that we cannot conceive the contrary; and the fact that we cannot conceive the contrary of any belief may be a presumption, but is certainly no proof, of its truth.

  Thomas Huxley

  Truth, Ideas, May

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.157, Library of Alexandria

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it... It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God's errands, as to palliate them with God's name... We are too ready to retailiate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us try then what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel.

  William Penn

  Hurt, Believe, Passion

  4 Copy quote

• ...a human being not only can choose but... he must choose... for in this way God retains His honor while at the same time has a fatherly concern for humankind. Though God has lowered Himself to being that which can be chosen, yet each person must on his part choose. God is not mocked. Therefore the matter stands thus: If a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the presumption of choosing the world.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Honor, World

  13 Copy quote

• In the upshot there is only one answer for the preacher who wonders whether he is worthy to preach the sermon he has composed or for the writer who wonders whether he is worthy to write the religious book he is working on. The answer is: Of course not. To ask yourself: Am I worthy to perform this Christian task? is really the peak of pride and presumption. For the very question carries the implication that we spend most of our time doing things we are worthy to do. We simply do not have that kind of worth.

  Harry Blamires

  Christian, Religious, Book

  6 Copy quote

• The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.

  Kingman Brewster, Jr.

  Presumption Of Innocence, Generosity, Spirit

  19 Copy quote

• Humility, which Burke ranked high among the virtues, is the only effectual restraint upon this congenital vanity; yet our world has nearly forgotten the nature of humility. Submission to the dictates of humility formerly was made palatable to man by the doctrine of grace; that elaborate doctrine has been overwhelmed by modern presumption.

  Russell Kirk

  Humility, Men, Vanity

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays”, p.364, Open Road Media

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are always more questions. Science as a process is never complete. It is not a foot race, with a finish line.... People will always be waiting at a particular finish line: journalists with their cameras, impatient crowds eager to call the race, astounded to see the scientists approach, pass the mark, and keep running. It's a common misunderstanding, he said. They conclude there was no race. As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Race, Knowing Everything

  4 Copy quote

• I believe I am entitled like any other person to have the presumption of innocence.

  Peter Slipper

  Believe, Presumption Of Innocence, Persons

  "Oppn launches twin attempts to interrupt Parliament". "AM " with Naomi Woodley, www.abc.net.au. May 8, 2012.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• We learn from our mistakes, we do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off - then we go forward, with the presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Reflection, Citizens

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most unnecessary attention but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of man who have folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

  Adam Smith

  Exercise, Men, Hands

  Adam Smith, Bruce Mazlish (2003). “The Wealth of Nations: Representative Selections”, p.167, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.

  Henry James

  Art, Exercise, Flying

  1884 'The Art of Fiction', collected in Partial Portraits (1988).

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For a time, people were getting arrested for photographing the Brooklyn Bridge. So to me, what it meant to do photography also changed. There was a new kind of politics to it - something that was very aggressive and dangerous - and a presumption that it would reveal some kind of truth or evidence.

  Trevor Paglen

  Photography, Brooklyn Bridge, Bridges

  5 Copy quote

• We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz

  Primo Levi

  Men, Evil, Skins

  Primo Levi (1996). “Survival In Auschwitz”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• During the first period of our lives the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much. By not risking at first one turns aside and serves trivialities; in the second case, by risking too much, one turns aside to the fantastic and perhaps to presumption.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Taken, Risk, Too Much

  5 Copy quote

• There is a line that I always loved from Lucretius. He said, "The sublime is the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures." The presumption of that formulation is that the more difficult pleasures are actually better than the easier pleasures. That is why one makes the exchange.

  Andrew Solomon

  Art, Sublime, Lines

  Source: andrewsolomon.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You always wonder whether the attacks on my capabilities came from an honest evaluation of my accomplishments or from stereotypical presumptions that we, people of color, just can't do it, for some reason. This is, for an accomplished Latino, an accomplished African American, an accomplished anyone who disproves stereotypes, it's a constant battle in your life.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Color, Accomplishment, People

  Source: www.eldiariony.com

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• My god, people are selling their work and people are reading it! The horror! That MFA programs have to advertise that they'll let you write YA or fantasy or what-have-you is just absurd, but we do, because the presumption is that they're closed to that sort of thing. You're offering an MFA in creative writing? Teach people how to write well, worry about that part, let the writers come up with the stories.

  Tod Goldberg

  Reading, Writing, Offering

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond... flesh, the moment of being alive... then nothing. I had searched in superstition... But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so... tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me... I saw that those simple things might be true... I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle. You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence.

  Sebastian Faulks

  Believe, Fighting, Simple

  4 Copy quote

• Fortunately, however, birds don't understand pep talks. Not even St. Francis'. Just imagine, he went on, preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

  Aldous Huxley

  Perfectly Good, Bird, Mouths

  Aldous Huxley (2010). “Island”, p.18, Harper Collins

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. They are the last belief we have, the belief in making them believe.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Children, Believe, Dresses

  4 Copy quote

• Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult.

  Maria Montessori

  Children, Knowing, Order

  Maria Montessori (1970). “The child in the family”, Contemporary Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• But if it’s true that the only true life I had was the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that, at the end of the day, they will give it back in an unmutilated condition? Fat chance!

  Utah Phillips

  Eight, Hands, Giving

  36 Copy quote

• On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Lying, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

  Emanuel Lasker (2013). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.9, Courier Corporation

  83 Copy quote

  Show source