Presumption Quotes - Page 3

• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• ...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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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).

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• We start from the presumption that our people are talented and want to contribute. We accept that, without meaning to, our company is stifling that talent in myriad unseen ways. Finally, we try to identify those impediments and fix them.

  Edwin Catmull

  People, Trying, Unseen

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• 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

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• From my perspective, 'postmodernism' merely names an interesting set of developments in the social order that is based on the presumption that God does not matter.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Order, Names, Interesting

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• We are not actually in charge of life, yet we behave as if we are the masters of our own destiny. The realization of this fact is quite a hard one. The ridiculousness of our pomposity and presumption can only result in anger or humor.

  Billy Childish

  Destiny, Realization, Facts

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• 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

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• That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Photography, Character, Men

  "Counsels and Maxims". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer, transl. by T. Bailey Saunders , Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377, 1851.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• In medieval times, the Church used to sell 'indulgences' for money. This amounted to paying for some number of days' remission from purgatory, and the Church literally (and with breathtaking presumption) issued signed certificates specifying the number of days off that had been purchased. . . . And of all its money-making rip-offs, the selling of indulgences must surely rank among the greatest con tricks in history. . . .

  Richard Dawkins

  Rip, Numbers, Religion

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• A lot of these ideas are built under wrong presumptions which officials have that chess players are lazy bastards whose sole idea is to deceive (the) public and to make short draws and go home. It's not true. It's a lie.

  Boris Gelfand

  Lying, Home, Player

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• It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.

  David Hume

  Strong, People, Ignorant

  David Hume (1793). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.130

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