Supposing Quotes - Page 4

• Supposing you've got an acute appendicitis. You've got to be operated on tonight. Would you like to have a surgeon who's read some books of anatomy and knows how to do that operation - or would you prefer to have a surgeon who refused to read all books about anatomy and relied on his own instinct?

  David Ogilvy

  Book, Tonight, Instinct

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• Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.

  Richard Whately

  Spiritual, Celibacy, Advantage

  Francis Bacon, Richard Whately (1861). “Bacon's Essays”, p.87

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• One man affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie; but supposing it to be true, what then? Why, he is a very good post-boy; that is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity I will believe him a liar; for if I do not, I must think him a beast.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Liars, Lying, Believe

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.104, Oxford University Press

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• If you know Christ and him crucified, you know enough to make you happy, supposing you know nothing else. And without this, all your other knowledge cannot keep you from being everlastingly miserable.

  George Whitefield

  Miserable, Christ, Enough

  George Whitefield (1832). “Sermons”, p.517

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• Just supposing for the sake of the argument that there is a being of such a kind as that He may with any propriety be called "God", it does seem antecedently very improbable that weak and limited creatures of a day, such as we are, should discover Him by our own efforts.... who could be discovered in that way would hardly be worth discovering. I think we ought to stick to that principle rather firmly. I think we ought to be rather sure that we cannot know God unless God has been pleased to reveal Himself to us.

  John Gresham Machen

  Thinking, Effort, May

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• There is no a prior reason for supposing that the truth, when it is discovered, will necessarily prove interesting.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Supposing That, Interesting, Reason

  Isaiah Berlin (1991). “The crooked timber of humanity: chapters in the history of ideas”, Random House Inc

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• ...no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Night, Mind

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• A simple woman down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing the bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveler, supposing that I had been traveling ever since, and had now come round again.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Simple, Years, Supposing That

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.665, Simon and Schuster

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• Compulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience.

  Pierre Bayle

  Reality, Rights, Atheism

  Pierre Bayle, John Kilcullen, Chandran Kukathas (2005). “A philosophical commentary on these words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23: "Compel them to come in, that My house may be full"”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Atheism, Principles, Needs

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• Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Writing, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: including the series edited with prefaces, biographical and critical”, p.78

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• Let me give you some advice: Try to approach things without preconceived ideas, without supposing you already know everything there is to know about them. Get that trick down and you'll be surprised at what's really all around you.

  Charles de Lint

  Ideas, Giving, Advice

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• Even if there was such a thing as a half-price sale at the local Ming outlet shop, she would have to work ten lifetimes to make up such a sum. Always supposing that it wasn't one of a kind. Panic was no longer merely rearing. It was thundering through her at full throttle. There was only one thing to be done, she realized. The mature, responsible, adult thing to do. Hide the evidence.

  Alexandra Ivy

  Supposing That, Adults, Done

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• It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Supposing That, Mind, Brain

  "Possible worlds, and other essays". Book by J. B. S. Haldane, 1927.

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• Inspiration comes unawares, from unaccountable sources that have nothing to do with planning or intelligence. Let it cool ever so slightly, and you are left, pen or brush in hand, with no inspiration at all. Gifted people need not, therefore, make a song and dance about being or supposing themselves superior. They simply happened to be born with that fortunate, subconscious equipment of theirs, and the mystery exists independently of intelligence or ambition.

  Maurice Chevalier

  Song, Inspiration, Ambition

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• You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Views

  Letter to Noah Worcester, November 26, 1817.

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• I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

  Jonathan Swift

  Supposing That, Littles, Sacred

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.593

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• Some things you can't find out; but you will never know you can't by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you can't find out.

  Mark Twain

  Supposing That, Goes On, Guessing

  Mark Twain (2007). “The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain”, p.209, Modern Library

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• If it is mind that we are searching the brain, then we are supposing the brain to be much more than a telephone-exchange. We are supposing it to be a telephone-exchange along with subscribers as well.

  Charles Scott Sherrington

  Brain, Mind, Telephones

  Man on his nature

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• There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('man's search for God'!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?

  C. S. Lewis

  Fear, Men, People

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works”, p.10, Harper Collins

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• The scientific method of examining facts is not peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of workers; it is applicable to social as well as to physical problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against supposing that the scientific frame of mind is a peculiarity of the professional scientist.

  Karl Pearson

  Science, Class, Supposing That

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• It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means.

  Lydia M. Child

  Spiritual, Philosophy, Mistake

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• Supposing the Mother Earth was very hot like the sun, there would have been no growth, or it was cold like moon, there would have been no growth. It had to come to the centre where it had both the things in proper proportions to grow. In the same way a human being has to work out that you keep a moderation and a balance and understand not to go to extremes of anything. That balance you learn when you love someone.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Mother, Wisdom

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• Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister... She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac... Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no other way you can govern a Chinese society.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Hurt, Writing, Thinking

  "Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas". Book by Fook Kwang Han, Sumiko Tan, and Warren Fernandez, 1998.

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• In this modern world plagued with counterfeits for the Lord's plan, we must not be misled into supposing that we can discharge our obligations to the poor and the needy by shifting the responsibility to some governmental or other public agency. Only by voluntarily giving out of an abundant love for our neighbors can we develop that charity characterized by Mormon as "the pure love of Christ." (Moro.7:47) This we must develop if we would obtain eternal life.

  Marion G. Romney

  Responsibility, Supposing That, Agency

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