Supposing Quotes - Page 2

• There is no ground for supposing that matter and energy existed before [the Big Bang] and were suddenly galvanized into action. For what could distinguish that moment from all other moments in eternity? It is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo-Divine will constituting Nature from nothingness.

  E. T. Whittaker

  Supposing That, Atheism, Bangs

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• Supposing that originally there was nothing but one creator, how could ordinary binary sexual relations come into being?

  Neal Stephenson

  Supposing That, Ordinary, Relation

  Neal Stephenson (2003). “Snow Crash”, p.254, Spectra

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• If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive movements of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.

  Howard Zinn

  Believe, Winning, Past

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• Happiness, the goal to which we all are striving is reached by endeavoring to make the lives of others happy, and if by renouncing the luxuries of life we can lighten the burdens of others.... surely the simplification of our wants is a thing greatly to be desired! And so, if instead of supposing that we must become hermits and dwellers in caves in order to practice simplicity, we set about simplifying our affairs, each according to his own convictions and opportunity, much good will result and the simple life will at once be established.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Happiness, Opportunity, Simple

  Mahatma Gandhi (2012). “The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas”, p.62, Vintage

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• Wherever primitive man put up a word, he believed he had made a discovery. How utterly mistaken he really was! He had touched a problem, and while supposing he had solved it, he had created and obstacle to its solution. Now, with every new knowledge we stumble over flint-like and petrified words and, in so doing, break a leg sooner than a word.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Break A Leg, Discovery

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• I use the verb 'to torment,' as I observed to be your own method, instead of 'to instruct,' supposing them to be now admitted as synonymous.

  Jane Austen

  Verbs, Use, Method

  Jane Austen (2009). “Northanger Abbey”, p.68, Wild Jot Press

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• Today is a new day. You will get out of it just what you put into it...If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, 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

  Mistake, Fall, New Day

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• When our thoughts revolve we are so often deceived into supposing that their violent movement is an indication of their vigorous originality, the upheaval of prejudice and fixed ideas, when all the time it is more likely that the machine which contains them is only an elaborate cement-mixer, and when the thinking is finished, those whirling thoughts are smoothed into the unchanged conventional mould and seeing them set solid enough to dance, to build, to travel upon, we would never dream of their first deceit, of the hope once roused by their apparently violent reorganisation.

  Janet Frame

  Dream, Thinking, Ideas

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• For the spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament doth not depend upon the nature of the thing received, supposing we received what our Lord appointed, and receive it with a right preparation and disposition of mind, but upon the supernatural blessing that goes along with it, and makes it effectual to those spiritual ends for which it was appointed.

  John Tillotson

  Spiritual, Blessing, Preparation

  John Tillotson (1685). “A Discourse Against Transubstantiation”, p.30

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• I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder-how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take vital interest.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Disappointment, Mistake, Order

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.136, Penguin

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• Supposing you eliminated suffering, what a dreadful place the world would be! I would almost rather eliminate happiness. The world would be the most ghastly place because everything that corrects the tendency of this unspeakable little creature, man, to feel over-important and over-pleased with himself would disappear. He's bad enough now, but he would be absolutely intolerable if he never suffered.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Men, Evil, Suffering

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• I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.

  Howard Zinn

  Past, Compassion, Supposing That

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.12, City Lights Books

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• The Analytical Engine might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

  Ada Lovelace

  Expression, Numbers, Musical

  "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage". Book by L.F. Menabrea. Scientific Memoirs (Richard Taylor): 694, 1842.

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• Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky would present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy-since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to reach us at all.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Stars, Distance, Science

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.1325, Delphi Classics

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• But the uproar this caused was nothing compared with the uproar when Katronia noticed [Rosie] had also cut her eyelashes. Various negotiations (including, finally, such desperate measures as "supposing you ever want to eat again") eventually produced the grudging promise that, in return for Katronia keeping her hair cut short, she would leave her eyelashes alone.

  Robin McKinley

  Cutting, Desperate Measures, Hair

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• Now supposing I had the part of a young woman to give out, one that wanted some excellent acting. If I were to go to the stage for my actress I would have to take a matured woman, one who would act splendidly, but who would look too old for the requirements.

  D. W. Griffith

  Supposing That, Giving, Acting

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• The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.

  Simone Weil

  Lying, Rights, Two

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.86, Psychology Press

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• One of the problems of taking things apart and seeing how they work - supposing you're trying to find out how a cat works--you take that cat apart to see how it works, what you've got in your hands is a non-working cat. The cat wasn't a sort of clunky mechanism that was susceptible to our available tools of analysis.

  Douglas Adams

  Cat, Hands, Supposing That

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• Are not all Hypotheses erroneous, in which Light is supposed to consist in Pression or Motion, propagated through a fluid Medium? For in all these Hypotheses the Phaenomena of Light have been hitherto explain'd by supposing that they arise from new Modifications of the Rays; which is an erroneous Supposition.

  Isaac Newton

  Science, Light, Supposing That

  Isaac Newton (2007). “Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light”, p.362, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that's like supposing the same candle could last you all your life

  Leo Tolstoy

  Loving Life, Men, Lasts

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• Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

  William Ralph Inge

  Honesty, Supposing That, Policy

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• It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Science, Supposing That, Forever

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

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• The Beauty of the Mountain is hidden for all those who try to discover it from the top, supposing that, one way or an other, one can reach this place directly. The Beauty of the Mountain reveals only to those who climbed it.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Supposing That, Trying, Mountain

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• Crawling at your feet,' said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), `you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.' And what does IT live on?' Weak tea with cream in it.' A new difficulty came into Alice's head. `Supposing it couldn't find any?' she suggested. Then it would die, of course.' But that must happen very often,' Alice remarked thoughtfully. It always happens,' said the Gnat.

  Lewis Carroll

  Butterfly, Wings, Feet

  Lewis Carroll (2017). “Through the Looking-Glass: and what Alice found there”, p.26, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Alice: It's the only way to leave. "I don't love you anymore. Goodbye." Dan: Supposing you do still love them? Alice: You don't leave.

  Patrick Marber

  Goodbye, Love You, Way

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