Quotes About Assumption

All you have to do is open yourself up to the cosmos as it lays itself before you. See it in all its mysterious dimensions. Without prejudice. Without assumption... All you ever needed was the key to open yourself to it. And that key is the wonder of the world. All the songs you could never remember but couldn't forget? You can find them now.

but personally if I never drink another crocodile pee I shall be a happy man.' 'Crocodile pee?' 'I always assumed that that was the main ingredient in Gatorade, but I may be wrong.

For one thing nobody seemed to think that

We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy. If I can convince you of one thing in this book, let it be this: Strangers are not easy.

The talent myth assumes that people make organizations smart. More often than not, it's the other way around.

To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse.

Taleb likes to invoke Popper: 'No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.

We have a default to truth: our operating assumption is that the people we are dealing with are honest.

When we see the giant, why do we automatically assume the battle is his for the winning?

We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren't and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser. Part One of David and Goliath is an attempt to explore the consequences of that error. When we see the giant, why do we automatically assume the battle is his for the winning? And what does it take to be that person who doesn't accept the conventional order of things as a given-

We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy.

We could start by no longer penalizing one another for defaulting to truth. If you are a parent whose child was abused by a stranger—even if you were in the room—that does not make you a bad parent. And if you are a university president and you do not jump to the worst-case scenario when given a murky report about one of your employees, that doesn't make you a criminal. To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society.

human beings never developed sophisticated and accurate skills to detect deception as it was happening because there is no advantage to spending your time scrutinizing the words and behaviors of those around you. The advantage to human beings lies in assuming that strangers are truthful. As

Chamberlain was acting on the same assumption that we all follow in our efforts to make sense of strangers. We believe that the information gathered from a personal interaction is uniquely valuable.

When we confront a stranger, we need to substitute an idea, a stereotype, for direct experience. And that stereotype is wrong all too often.

We do the opposite. We start by believing.

the "Truth-Default Theory," or TDT.

to assess the character of a stranger. And the criminal justice system assumes, as Chamberlain did, that those kinds of difficult decisions are better made when the judge and the judged meet each other first.

We're much better than chance at correctly identifying the students who are telling the truth. But we're much worse than chance at correctly identifying the students who are lying. We go through all those videos, and we guess—"true, true, true"—which means we get most of the truthful interviews right, and most of the liars wrong. We have a default to truth: our operating assumption is that the people we are dealing with are honest.

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more.

I resented the easy supposition of all's well that ends well.

I love the literature that these men created; but I will not live my life as if they are real and I am not. Nor will I tolerate the continuing assumption that they know more about women than we know about ourselves.