Premises Quotes

• Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

  Samuel Butler

  Life, Wisdom, Art

  Notebooks "Life" (1912)

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• Essential to the theory of evolution is the premise that everything has come into being by itself.

  Unknown

  Aquariums, Theory Of Evolution, Essentials

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• All proofs rest on premises.

  Aristotle

  Proof

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• Those who hope for purity and righteousness always try and destroy that which disturbs them. They think the disturbance comes from outside themselves. This is a serious problem. Wars, suicide bombings, and all sorts of other nasty things start from the premise that we can destroy 'evil' outside ourselves without dealing with the evil within.

  Brad Warner

  Suicide, Hope, War

  Brad Warner (2010). “Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma”, p.89, New World Library

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• Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.

  Dorianne Laux

  Writing, Simple, Metaphor

  Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux (2010). “The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

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• In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Math, Ideas, Issues

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.72, Simon and Schuster

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• The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than your own.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Mistake, Book, People

  Daniel Kahneman (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, p.31, Macmillan

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• When we enter into any relationship with the premise that we are empty and the other person will fill us in, we are sure to fail. We can only win when we proceed from wholeness.

  Alan Cohen

  Relationship, Winning, Failing

  Alan Cohen (1987). “Healing of the Planet Earth: Personal Power and Planetary Transformation”, Dolphin Communications Co

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• All of the factors that make up a quality city - safe streets, high paying jobs, strong neighborhoods, etc. - emanate from a strong educational premise.

  Alan Autry

  Strong, Jobs, Educational

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

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• Unless you plan on making academia your life, all you need to know about postmodernism is that its premises are fundamentally wrong.

  Tucker Max

  Academia, Needs, Postmodernism

  4 Copy quote

• The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

  Erich Fromm

  Art, Creation, Capacity

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• Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, Atlas, Literature

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.152, Hamilton Books

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• When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it's time to check your premises

  Nathaniel Branden

  Suicide, Principles, Checks

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• Hope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.

  John Updike

  Facts, Foolish, Scribbles

  "The Early Stories: 1953-1975".

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• Germany, I think, was first to substitute a Social Security program for its elderly based on this premise, that is, that we would tax workers to pay retirement benefits for those retired.

  John Shadegg

  Retirement, Thinking, Elderly

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• Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premises, but in the nature and parts of premises.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Thinking, Facts, Conclusion

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835). “Specimens of the table talk”, p.12

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• All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

  Aldo Leopold

  Animal, Land, Water

  Aldo Leopold (1968). “A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There”, p.178, Oxford University Press

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• What I want you to understand, is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check - before they grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity - whether they know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires.

  Ayn Rand

  Winning, Evil, Want

  Ayn Rand (1957). “Atlas Shrugged”

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• If you do a scene and you really like a character in it or a premise in it to write it down and to work on it so that you can have five or six characters that you can pull out in an audition.

  Amy Poehler

  Writing, Character, Down And

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• The basic premise that children must learn about emotions is that all feelings are okay to have; however, only some reactions are okay.

  Daniel Goleman

  Children, Feelings, Emotion

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• The premise of my book is that everyone is a bit ideological to some extent. Everyone comes from a ideological perspective.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Book, Perspective, Ideological

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• Above all, you ask if the God of Christians forgives those who do not believe and who do not seek faith. Given the premise, and this is fundamental, that the mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Lying, Believe

  "Letter To A Non-Believer". w2.vatican.va. September 4, 2013.

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• I thought then and I think now that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust and I think the premises on which it was launched were false.

  Jimmy Carter

  Thinking, Iraq, Unjust

  "Former President Carter Addresses Faith, Justice, and Iraq War at Baptist Centenary" by Maria Mackay, www.christianpost.com. July 30, 2005.

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• I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Men, Diversity, Culture

  "God and the State" (1871)

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• I think Junior is certainly a science fiction premise as is Twins, as is Dave, beyond Ghostbusters.

  Ivan Reitman

  Thinking, Fiction, Juniors

  7 Copy quote