Presumption Quotes - Page 7

• Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Truth, Deceptive, Falsehood

  Ambrose Bierce (2015). “A Cynic Looks at Life”, p.39, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.

  Herbert Spencer

  Numbers, Gains, Opinion

  Herbert Spencer (1867). “First principles”, p.4

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• Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne ; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Judging, Leviathan

  Thomas Hobbes (2015). “Leviathan: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.210, 谷月社

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• As for the ethics, law, and politics relationship, there has always been a tension for me as I try to keep them distinct while recognizing their interactions. A valuable contribution to my thinking there and elsewhere was Ellen Meiksins Wood's Mind and Politics, which reinforced for me the ways in which seemingly disparate philosophical endeavors were/are interconnected, and although I have tended to give a certain priority to ethical considerations as part of practical reasoning, I am reminded often enough that this position makes some contentious presumptions .

  John Kleinig

  Philosophical, Thinking, Giving

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Wherever the Industrial system has reached its second generation it is threatened by two mortal perils. The first is the demand by an organized proletariat for sustenance without relation to the product of its labor; a demand which threatens the very existence of PROFIT (on the necessary presumption of which Capitalism reposes). The second, and immediately graver danger is that of a revolt for the confiscation of the means of production.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Wisdom, Mean, Two

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• It may be that the requirement of a preliminary approval by the Grand Jury, of all accusations of a serious nature, justified the boast that a man was presumed to be innocent until he was 'found' guilty; but that presumption certainly ceased to have practical application, so soon as the Grand Jury had returned a 'true bill'.

  Edward Jenks

  Men, May, Bills

  Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

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• Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Past, Times Past, Prudence

  Thomas Hobbes (2013). “Leviathan”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

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• That an author takes a bow is not humility but presumption. What does the paleface want on the stage afterwards? But before the performance he had even less business there--and paying him royalties is equivalent to cheating the actors.

  Karl Kraus

  Cheating, Humility, Doe

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• What Americans don't care much about is the piffle we put on TV these days, what they don't care about is boring, irrelevant, badly told stories, and what they really hate is the presumption that they're too stupid to know the difference.

  Christiane Amanpour

  Hate, Stupid, Differences

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• The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is basedon induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical mediation.

  Chauncey Wright

  Philosophy, Writing, Science

  Chauncey Wright (1871). “Darwinism: Being an Examination of Mr. St. George Mivart's 'Genesis of Species'”, p.8

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• Ask any school-boy up to the age of fifteen where he would spend his holidays. Not one in five hundred will say, "In the streets of London," if you give him the option of green fields and running waters. It is, then, a fair presumption that there must be something of the child still in the character of the men or the women whom the country charms in maturer as in dawning life.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Running, Country, Children

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• Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Fool, Made

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.741

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• The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Pride, Men, Meals

  Henry Home (lord Kames.) (1818). “Introduction to the art of thinking, to which is prefixed an original life of the author”, p.80

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• Education is a process by which the individual is developed into something better than he would have been without it. ... The very though seems in a way the height of presumption. For one thing, it involves the premise that some human beings can be better than others.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Height, Way, Individual

  Richard M. Weaver (1966). “Life Without Prejudice: And Other Essays”

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• Our first love-letter ... There is so much to be said, and which no words seems exactly to say - the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  First Love, Letters, Littles

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1831). “Romance and Reality”, p.232

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• People say, "I have heart disease," not "I am heart disease." Somehow the presumption of a person's individuality is not compromised by those diagnostic labels. All the labels tell us is that the person has a specific challenge with which he or she struggles in a highly diverse life. But call someone "a schizophrenic" or "a borderline" and the shorthand has a way of closing the chapter on the person. It reduces a multifaceted human being to a diagnosis and lulls us into a false sense that those words tell us who the person is, rather than only telling us how the person suffers.

  Martha Manning

  Struggle, Heart, Justice

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• The mind must not be forced; artificial and constrained manners fill it with foolish presumption, through unnatural elevation and vain and ridiculous inflation, instead of solid and
  vigorous nutriment.

  Blaise Pascal

  Mind, Ridiculous, Foolish

  Blaise Pascal, Henry Rogers, Victor Cousin, Charles Louandre (1861). “The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal”, p.513

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• There are certain mystical belief systems that believe that taking pictures takes an aspect of the soul, but beyond that it's just the idea that once you're captured in a photograph, then a million presumptions are made of you, and you are forever frozen in that one moment, and you are perceived to be the embodiment of that moment, and that, of course, is an illusion.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Believe, Ideas, Forever

  Source: www.independent.ie

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• Old heads as well as young may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption. The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Mind, May

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.94

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• It is evil to justify killing (unborn babies) by the happy outcome of eternity for the one killed. This same justification could be used to justify killing one-year olds, or any heaven-bound believer for that matter. The Bible asks the question: "Shall we sin that grace may abound?" (Romans 6:1) And: "Shall we do evil that good may come?" (Romans 3:8). In both cases the answer is a resounding NO. It is presumption to step into God's place and try to make the assignments to heaven or to hell. Our duty is to obey God, not to play God.

  John Piper

  Baby, Years, Play

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• If the tradition which claims that war may be justified does not also admit that it could be unjustified, the affirmation is not morally serious. A Christian who prepares the case for a justified war without being equally prepared for hte negative case has not soberly weighted the prima facie presumption that any violence is wrong until the case for an exception has been made.

  John Howard

  Christian, War, Negative

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• You cannot be desperate when the army is making advances. That should have happened - if we take into consideration that this presumption is correct and this is reality - you use it when you're in a desperate situation.

  Bashar al-Assad

  Army, Reality, Desperate Situations

  Source: legrandsoir.info

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• The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage.

  Francis George

  Law, Goal, Reason

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

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• I would challenge the statement that my scientific instincts are any less rigorous than [Richard Dawkins]. The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.

  Richard Dawkins

  Zero, Differences, Challenges

  Source: inters.org

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• In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.

  William James

  Real, Views, Sweat

  William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.26, 谷月社

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