Assumption Quotes - Page 17

• Our military plans should be based on the assumption of unpredictability, rather than on carefully drawn, static models of the world.

  James Fallows

  Military, World, Should

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• The first assumption of an art critic is that the artist meant to paint something else.

  Robert Breault

  Art, Firsts, Paint

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• The social order of things has demanded an emphasis on the differences between gender that do not in my opinion in fact exist. I’m not going to go around putting pronouns on everything. Things are often deeply compromised by the set of assumptions you bring to the world, which is this black or white, this male or female.

  Roni Horn

  Order, White, Differences

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• Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

  Nicholas Negroponte

  Top Down, Self, Order

  "Online Extra: Q&A With MIT's Nicholas Negroponte". Interview with Stephen Baker, www.bloomberg.com. June 21, 2004.

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• The blind conviction that we have to do something about other people's reproductive behavior, and that we may have to do it whether they like it or not, derives from the assumption that the world belongs to us, who have so expertly depleted its resources, rather than to them, who have not.

  Germaine Greer

  People, World, May

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• The American myth is of free will in its simple, primary sense. One can choose oneself and will oneself; and this absurdly optimistic assumption so dominates the republic that it has bred all its gross social injustices.

  John Fowles

  Optimistic, Simple, Republic

  John Fowles (1977). “Daniel Martin”, Jonathan Cape

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• What I have against M.B.A.s is the assumption that you come out of a two-year program probably never having been a manager - at least for full-time younger people M.B.A. programs - and assume you are ready to manage.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Years, Two, People

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• Our minds have the need to know. When we dont know we make assumptions - they make us feel safer than not knowing. And we are pretty much always making assumptions.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Knowing, Mind, Needs

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• The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of design in nature. Belief in design in nature is based upon the belief in God. Things are as they are whether there is a God or not. Logically, to believe in design one must start with God. He, or it, is not a conclusion but a datum. You may begin by assuming a creator, and then say he did this or that; but you cannot logically say that because certain things exist, therefore there is a God who made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion. And it is an assumption that explains nothing.

  Chapman Cohen

  God, Believe, Data

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• I like the rough impersonality of New York ... Human relations are oiled by jokes, complaints, and confessions-all made with the assumption of never seeing the other person again.

  Bill Bradley

  New York, Cities, Confession

  Bill Bradley (2010). “Life on the Run”, p.131, RosettaBooks

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• The feudal concept of self-preservation is poisoned at the core by the virulent assumption of master and man, of potentate and slave, of external and internal suppression of the life urge of the only one - of its faith in human sacrifice as a means of salvation.

  Louis Sullivan

  Mean, Sacrifice, Men

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• All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being 'worthy of being known.

  Max Weber

  Reality, Mind, Important

  Max Weber (2015). “On the Methodology of the Social Sciences”, p.104, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.

  Alan Lightman

  Conflict, Universe

  Alan Lightman (2014). “The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew”, p.32, Vintage

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• We Catholics must admit that there is a constant temptation among us to avoid the lectionary and the Word of God for private and pious devotions that usually have little power to actually change us or call our ego assumptions into question.

  Richard Rohr

  Temptation, Catholic, Ego

  "Preparing for Christmas" by Fr. Richard Rohr, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 6, 2012.

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• Personally, I don't see old economics and behavioural economics as opposed. It is useful to assume people are rational as a good approximation to their long term behaviour, but it would be unwise not to think how in practice their behaviour may deviate from that simplifying assumption.

  Evan Davis

  Thinking, Practice, Long

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• The people who whine about Fox News are hypocrites - they say they're totally tolerant, but when they run into someone who doesn't share their assumptions, they say, 'Fox News is evil, and it must be stopped.

  Greg Gutfeld

  Running, Hypocrite, People

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• Beware of "the real world". A speaker's apeal to it is always an invitation not to challenge his tacit assumptions.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Real, Challenges, World

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• It is becoming plain that our liberal regime of equality and personal freedom depends, more than most theorists of liberalism have been willing to admit, on the existence and support of certain social assumptions and practices: the belief that each and every human being possesses great and inherent value, the willingness to respect the rights of others even at the cost of some disadvantages to one's self, the ability to defer some immediate benefits for the sake of long-range goals, and a regard for reason-giving and civility in public discourse.

  Mary Ann Glendon

  Rights, Self, Practice

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• The self-talk of the ego-mind is so busy describing what is happening, judging whether it is good or bad for us, and telling us what we should think and do, that there is little opportunity for our inner knowing to be heard. Instead we remain attached to our assumptions, dreaming of the fulfillment we believe they will bring.

  Russell Peters

  Dream, Believe, Opportunity

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• The evidence here, as elsewhere, suggests that education is certainly relevant, but more because better education is associated with general differences in patterns of life than because discrete parts of a lifestyle can be changed. Health-change policies which focus entirely on the individual may be ineffective not only because exposure to health risks is largely involuntary, but also, as this study has shown, because of unwarranted assumptions about the extent to which behaviour can, in these circumstances, be effective in improving health.

  Mildred Blaxter

  Differences, Focus, Risk

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• I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

  Callie Khouri

  Character, Thinking, Quality

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• While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  Analogies, Mislead

  "The Great Game Then and Now". Address to the Conference on Oil and Gas in the Caspian Sea Region: Geopolitical and Regional Security, March 12, 1998.

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• If we base our belief systems on the humble assumption that the complexities of the world are ontologically beyond our understanding, then maybe our belief systems will make more sense and end up causing less suffering.

  Moby

  Humble, Understanding, Suffering

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• I mean there is an assumption made that Islam is about submission, and I think that the submission that we have is to God.

  Haleh Afshar, Baroness Afshar

  God, Mean, Thinking

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• The human mind inherently seeks intelligible order. Thus the conviction that such an order exists to be found is a crucial assumption.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Order, Mind, Conviction

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