Quotes About Assumptions

The thing that mostly gets in the way of dialogue," he says, "is holding to assumptions and opinions, and defending them." This instinct to judge and defend, embedded in the selfdefense mechanisms of our biological heritage, is the source of incoherence.

If we all had to do a job together, we would likely find that each one of us would have different opinions and assumptions, and thus we would find it hard to do the job. The temperature could go way up.

What is essential here is that the act of creative perception in the form of a metaphor is basically similar in all these fields, in that it involves an extremely perceptive state of intense passion and high energy that dissolves the excessively rigidly held assumptions in the tacit infrastructure of commonly accepted knowledge.

Overall, the handbook focused us on trying to disprove our assumptions about a business and thus avoid falling into the trap of confirmation bias.

history should continually seek to challenge our assumptions. It should prompt us to look differently at the world and make us less self-assured about our own ideals and beliefs.

It ain't easy to break out of a mold, but if you do your work, people will ultimately see what you're capable of. Too often, people find it easier to make assumptions and stick with what they believe. They put you in a place and it makes their job easier. The good people constantly search for something different.

You are not being paid to make assumptions

I know I have this judgmental side that I'm often fighting against. But today I recognized the depths of my assumptions about people. What I envision is nothing remotely similar to the reality. Humility hurts. Coming home is disturbing.

Never) judge a book by its cover or a woman by her kitchen.

It's what we think we know that keeps us from learning.

There's a way to break out of this bind: Don't act as though your limited experience represents universal truths. It doesn't. Force yourself to go outside your own experience by vigorously testing your assumptions.

As a negotiator, take some risk, break free from the precedent of your past experiences, challenge your assumptions, raise your aspiration level, and increase your expectations.

it is impossible to begin investigation without assumptions, for they all are founded on ideas and canons which have their basis in the rational and moral nature of man.

If parents had children who were good sleepers, they assumed this was due to their good parenting, not good luck. They followed the rules, and the rules had been proven to work. Celeste must therefore not be following the rules. And you could never prove it to them! They would die smug in their beds.

Ellen had always assumed she would marry young and have a relationship like theirs. She thought she was that sort of person. Traditional. Nice. As if nice girls always found nice boys. As if "niceness" was all that was necessary to maintain a relationship.

Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other Gods conflict with the assumptions of science.

I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours.

People don't really want to know anything about you. They just want to put you into their little preordained slots. They decide what you are in the first two seconds, and they only get nervous or upset if you don't live up to their snap judgements. That's the only way the normal world's like the Real – it all depends on who people think you are. Figure that out, play to what they expect, and it's clear sailing.

I'm not going to assume liberals are stupid, as they do with conservatives. No, I'll attribute it instead to more fraud and deceit.

Your assumptions are just as wild as your confusion.

whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

Remember that nutty little story I told you about the first time I ever went overseas for my junior year abroad at Green Bay, and I stepped onto the airstrip in Madrid to be obscurely disheartened that Spain, too, had trees. Of course Spain has trees! you jeers. I was embarrassed; of course I knew, in a way, it had trees, but with the sky and the ground and the people walking around--well, it just didn't seem that different.

As trust in institutions erodes, the basic assumptions of fairness, shared values, and equal opportunity traditionally upheld by 'the system' are no longer taken for granted.

It's a rare moment when we take a break from the tribulations of the daily rat race to reflect on assumptions and values that we casually accept as gospel.