Quotes About Assumptions

I picked books by their covers - the worse the cover, the more I wanted to read it.

We as Americans assume that big companies are bad, and big power companies are even worse.

A lot of our assumptions of the world are fairly cynical, fairly negative, and assume the worst. What our reading tastes show - in this rush to fantasy, romance, whatever - is that we actually still want to believe in a world of possibility, in a world of mystery.

There are so many scenarios here. We tried to prepare for the worst summer in 40 years and build assumptions based on that. We're preparing for the worst, but we're hoping for the best. And I've told people the end is in sight.

People have had certain assumptions in the past about Conservative governments, partly because of some of the things that happened in the 1980s, and partly because of the tone of some of the debate in the 1980s that appeared to say public spending on the arts was something you might want to progressively reduce.

If a top four job came along, I don't think people will look at Tony Pulis to do that.

Too many people limit their happiness and success by assuming that taking time off from work will send a negative message to their manager and slow their career advancement.

A computer is a general-purpose machine with which we engage to do some of our deepest thinking and analyzing. This tool brings with it assumptions about structuredness, about defined interfaces being better. Computers abhor error.

I grew up in South Mumbai and I am a total homebody, so I was not seen around. I guess that's the reason many believed that I wasn't Indian or can't speak Hindi.

To read history, to debate history, is to test our assumptions in the laboratory of real events; to learn, in the process, some appropriate humility about our capacity to forestall crises; and to grasp that extraordinary moments generally demand that ordinary assumptions be hurled out the window. Model-based social sciences, with their search for certainties that appear constant in large sets of data, teach neither humility nor flexibility.

Turi remembers this strange feeling repeated throughout his life: who he thinks he is in his mind is sometimes not who others see or imagine he can be. This gap never seems to go away. Sometimes this secret self is comforting, for its privacy. Sometimes it is amusing, when he witnesses what crazy assumptions others have of him. Too often this gap is dispiriting, a prison inside of him without any means of escape.

You drink root beer while you watch an NBA game? You are an American wannabe, aren't you?" "That is perhaps the most horrid thing you could say to an Englishman." "Worse than French wannabe?" "Well, there is that.

Once you realize all our assumptions about power are created by the powerful, you understand it must be changed. You rethink power. Not the power that is desire, or dominance. The power that is strength.

Once you realize all our assumptions about power are created by the powerful, you understand it must be changed. You rethink power. Not the power that is desire, or dominance. The power that is strength." He smashed

While Soviet political leaders held certain assumptions about trade, notably that the profit-driven capitalist market was evil and the resale of goods for more than the purchase price constituted a crime ("speculation"), they gave little advance thought to what "socialist trade" might mean.

These attitudes, assumptions and prejudices are hard-wired into us: not into our brains (there is no neurological reason for us to hear low-pitched voices as more authoritative than high-pitched ones), but into our culture, our language and millennia of our history.

Every human being relies on and is bounded by his knowledge and experience to live. This is what we call "reality". However, knowledge and experience are ambiguous, thus reality can become illusion. Is it not possible to think that, all human beings are living in their assumptions?

Fomenko was a classic conspiracy theorist: he proved his assertions by way of relentlessly logical constructions based on random mathematical assumptions, and he dismissed all contrary evidence as falsification by his enemies.

Gary has made the classic mistake of equating precise cheekbones, perfect breasts, and a vague association with philanthropy as the signs of a good woman.

Many professors use the Argument from Intimidation to stifle independent thinking among the students, to evade questions they cannot answer, to discourage any critical analysis of their arbitrary assumptions or any departure from the intellectual status quo.

The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted.

So this was the mental procedure, which even a little girl could learn: First, size up the situation. Make sure you have all the facts, and nothing but the facts—no folklore, no conventional wisdom, no lazy assumptions. Then examine the facts for patterns and connections. Make a prediction. See if it works. And if it doesn't work, start all over again.

We are chained to the things that we desire, even though they will inevitably decay and fall to dust. We are enslaved by our ideas, which are in fact delusions and misguided assumptions about what is right and wrong, partial yet dearly held notions of reality. Finally, we are fettered by our hatreds, which arise from our egoistical notions of ourselves: we are proud, we nurse our wounds, and we fail to recognize that we are part of a larger whole that includes all sentient beings.

Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.