Quotes About Assumptions

The idea, so current in our time, that Southern California is peopled by idlers, oldsters, playboys, and crackpots.

All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.

It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.

All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based – or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug – it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.

On handing the book back to my friend, the woman inquired Is he gay? No, said my friend. The woman pondered for a moment. Is he English? she asked.

If theory means a reasonably systematic reflection of our guiding assumptions, it remains as indispensable as ever.

Young man, the games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.

The games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.

I always felt journalists had a very clear idea of what they wanted to write about me before the interview began.

I think people make a lot of judgments about me based on what I wear and all the things that I do.

One of the problems with a candidate like Bob Kennedy, and his brother before him, was that people assumed they didn't need contributions.

I have male friends. I'm the type of girl that always had male friends, more male friends than female friends. So just because you see me with the person doesn't mean that I'm kicking it with them, hanging out with them, or we're romantically involved in any way, shape or form.

I'm not who people expect me to be. I'm not Henry Kissinger.

We have to be careful about applying criminal labels to people until we're very sure.

Accounting and finance are not reality, the are a reflection of reality, and the accuracy of that reflection depends on the ability of accountants and finance professionals to make reasonable assumptions and to calculate reasonable estimates.

Absent in such knowledge, what happens? Simple: the people from accounting and finance control the decisions. We use the word control because when decisions are based on numbers, and when the numbers are based on accountants' assumptions and estimates, then the accountants and finance folks have effective control (even if they aren't trying to control anything). That's why you should need to know what questions to ask.

I hate it when people throw big sweeping generalizations at you that you can't even begin to interpret.

I hate sentences that begin with my name followed by the claim—indubitably erroneous—that the speaker knows something about me. Those kinds of sentences rank right up there with the ones that begin with You know what your problem is? That's always a doozy. Talk about a trick question. Nothing worth hearing ever follows that preface.

We must regard all laws or theories as hypothetical or conjectural; that is, as guesses.

It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.

In the words of the systems thinker John Sterman, 'The most important assumptions of a model are not in the equations, but what's not in them; not in the documentation, but unstated; not in the variables on the computer screen, but in the blank spaces around them'.

Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?

Still, intuitive assumptions about behavior is only the starting point of systematic analysis, for alone they do not yield many interesting implications.

While veteran leaders may have the benefit of experience, they're weighed down by legacy beliefs. Many of their assumptions about customers, technology, and the competitive environment were forged years or decades earlier, and reflect a world that no longer exists.