Quotes About Assumptions

It was another fear, a fear that the child, in challenging the white world's assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction.

Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception. It is up to the American writer to find out what these laws and assumptions are. In a society much given to smashing taboos without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter.

The fear that I heard in my father's voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a fear that the child, in challenging the white world's assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction.

People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven't given much thought to the connections.

I think I underestimated the way people bracket you.

Contrary to what professional economists will typically tell you, economics is not a science. All economic theories have underlying political and ethical assumptions, which make it impossible to prove them right or wrong in the way we can with theories in physics or chemistry.

If you look at the history of big obstacles in understanding our world, there's usually an intuitive assumption underlying them that's wrong.

When there is a problem, always identify and evaluate your underlying assumptions that may be contributing to the problem or preventing you from seeing the problem clearly.

I don't like labels. I don't understand the need for them. When you define yourself a certain way, people have expectations.

When, you know, when Nic became addicted, I was completely uneducated, and basically everything I assumed at the time turned out to be wrong. I guess the main thing is that I was so blindsided, that I had this idea of, you know, what an addict looks like, and it didn't look like Nic. And I realized that, you know, anybody can become addicted.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

Valid questions are better than invalid assumptions.

Most people have this tendency to make judgments on others based on preconceptions, especially when they are dealing with them for the first time.

If more women are in leadership roles, we'll stop assuming they shouldn't be.

Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.

Being born in a stable does not make one a horse.

Mainstream media's representation, or its guerrilla decontextualization, of black men's lives in particular can set the stage for erroneous assumptions capable of damaging an individual or a nation.

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Gentlemen are overestimated, that is my experience.

Don't make assumptions.

We no longer have the luxury of dogma, assumptions, and unexamined opinions about New York, not from any side of the many divides that separate us in this city. A fourth evolution of New York is clearly imminent; economics, public health, and social justice demand it.

Mom got very heated about the new government policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In her view it was going to allow closeted gay people into her military and she was really against it... she just assumed I agreed with her opinions.

When I was growing up in Newcastle, there was one other Indian girl, and we got confused for each other constantly.

I'm a first-generation American. My parents are from Nigeria. I had this weird last name that looked Japanese, and then people would see me and go, 'Oh. You're not Japanese.'