Supposing Quotes

• There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

  Aldo Leopold

  Spiritual, Two, Supposing That

  Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.6, Oxford University Press, USA

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Thinking, Supposing That

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?' 'Supposing it didn't,' said Pooh after careful thought. Piglet was comforted by this.

  A. A. Milne

  Supposing That, Tree, Piglet

  Milne, George, Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander), Shepard, Ernest H. (1977). “The World of Pooh : the Complete Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner”, McClelland and Stewart, 1989

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Supposing That, People

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.460

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Philosophy, Believe

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Supposing everyone lived at one time what would they say. They would observe that stringing string beans is universal.

  Gertrude Stein

  Supposing That, Strings, Beans

  7 Copy quote

• We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.

  Robert M. Hutchins

  Book, Light, Supposing That

  65 Copy quote

• Supposing truth is a woman -- what then?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Supposing That, Truth Is

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.192, Modern Library

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

  Mark Twain

  Learning, Science, Supposing That

  Mark Twain (2015). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.99, Univ of California Press

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside?

  Mary Douglas

  Jealousy, Believe, Frustration

  8 Copy quote

• New media may at first appear as mere codes of transmission for older achievement and established patterns of thought. But nobody could make the mistake of supposing that phonetic writing merely made it possible for the Greeks to set down in visual order what they had though and known before writing. In the same way printing made literature possible. It did not merely encode literature.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Mistake, Writing, Media

  8 Copy quote

• People help each other through a crisis by each supposing that the other can handle it better than he himself can.

  Frank A. Clark

  Supposing That, People, Helping

  6 Copy quote

• What if we choose not to do the things we are supposed to do? The principal gain is a sense of an authentic act - and an authentic life. It may be a short one, but it is an authentic one, and that's a lot better than those short lives full of boredom. The principal loss is security. Another is respect from the community. But you gain the respect of another community, the one that is worth having the respect of.

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Respect, Loss

  44 Copy quote

• Every day some new fact comes to light - some new obstacle which threatens the gravest obstruction. I suppose this is the reason which makes the game so well worth playing.

  Robert Falcon Scott

  Life, Light, Discovery

  Robert Falcon Scott, Max Jones (2008). “Journals: Captain Scott's Last Expedition”, p.114, Oxford University Press

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't paint like a woman is supposed to paint. Thank God, art doesn't bother about things like that.

  Alice Neel

  God, Art, Women

  63 Copy quote

• Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Success, Trust, Sympathy

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.35, Basic Books

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.

  Ronald Speirs

  Hope, War, Acceptance

  82 Copy quote

• Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become.

  Amy Goodman

  Power, Government, Media

  77 Copy quote

• The great loneliness- like the loneliness a caterpillar endures when she wraps herself in a silky shroud and begins the long transformation from chrysalis to butterfly. It seems we too must go through such a time, when life as we have known it is over- when being a caterpillar feels somehow false and yet we don’t know who we are supposed to become. All we know is that something bigger is calling us to change. And though we must make the journey alone, and even if suffering is our only companion, soon enough we will become a butterfly, soon enough we will taste the rapture of being alive.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Life, Change, Loneliness

  62 Copy quote

• I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, That I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Thinking, Wish, Age

  Jonathan Edwards, Henry Rogers, Sereno Edwards Dwight, Edward Hickman (1834). “Works”, p.64

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must beware of falling into the fatally common error of supposing that what we see is all there is to see.

  Charles Webster Leadbeater

  Fall, Errors, Supposing That

  Charles Webster Leadbeater (1996). “The Life After Death and How Theosophy Unveils It”, p.7, Health Research Books

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.

  Mary Pickford

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Why Not Try God?", Chapter 6 (newspaper serial) in St. Petersburg Times, sect. 2, p. 3, news.google.com. January 25, 1936.

  101 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today is a new day.You will get out of it just what you put into it.

  Mary Pickford

  New Day, Today, Today Is A New Day

  64 Copy quote

• Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It's a system that's supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That's how the system guides you through the world.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Moving, Blood, Unhappy

  32 Copy quote

• Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!

  Tasha Tudor

  Life, Beautiful, Appreciation

  67 Copy quote