Quotes & Sayings About Assuming

Countries do not assume burdens because it is fair, only because it is necessary. — Henry A. Kissinger

I've read in a couple stories that I was raised Episcopalian, but that's not true. I think that's just people assuming things. In some ways, I wish I was raised Episcopalian. I was kind of raised hodgepodge. — Sufjan Stevens

When a woman extends her hand for you to shake it, then you shake her hand. You do not turn it up and kiss it. And it is just so creepy. Because, you know, I handed it at this angle. I handed it at the handshake angle and so I'm not giving it to you to do whatever you want with it. I'm not loaning it to you. It's like if somebody borrowed your lawnmower and you're assuming they're going to use it to mow their lawn. You don't want to find out later they put it in the ocean! — Paula Poundstone

You only get to be my age by assuming the worst." Mr. Wednesday, American Gods — Neil Gaiman

The "conference room" is actually the library since it's the only space other than the morgue fridge big enough to hold this many people, and Hurley and I already have dibs on that other room. As we enter the library, a cacophony of noise greets us. Everyone is talking to everyone else and most of the voices are a mere gnat's ass away from shouting. Hurley's little pup tent is safe, assuming it's still up, because our entry into the room goes unnoticed by everyone other than Izzy. — Annelise Ryan

They say the level of civilization is proportionate to the degree of cleanliness of the skin. Assuming that man has a soul, it must, in all likelihood, be housed in the skin. — Kobo Abe

I believe we accept too indifferently the fact of infantile amnesia - that is, the failure of memory for the first years of our lives - and fail to find in it a strange riddle. We forget of what great intellectual accomplishments and of what complicated emotions a child of four years is capable. We really ought to wonder why the memory of later years has, as a rule, retained so little of these psychic processes, especially as we have every reason for assuming that these same forgotten childhood activities have not glided off without leaving a trace in the development of the person, but that they have left a definite influence for all future time. — Sigmund Freud

People approach writers, assuming we pull a perfect text out of our nose each time (well spelled). Spelling is the least of it. — Sara Levine

They say love is blind, but in your case I'm assuming it's also deaf, dumb, and completely brain dead. — Michelle M. Pillow

What we experience in dreams - assuming that we experience it often - belongs in the end just as much to the over-all economy of our soul as anything experienced "actually": we are richer or poorer on account of it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In my return to church, I had learned the hard way to avoid assumptions about other people's faith. For one thing, people kept surprising me. If I listened carefully to them, my conjectures about what they thought usually turned out to be wrong. For another thing, I was insecure enough about my own faith, such as it was, to resent other people telling me what they thought I believed and why they thought I believed it. So I tried to hear what my friends say about joining their loved ones after death without assuming I knew exactly what they meant. — Margaret D. McGee

Either Christ is a liar or war is never necessary, and very properly assuming that Christ told the truth, it follows that the State is without [in the words of Father Macksey] 'judicial authority to determine when war is necessary,' because it is never necessary. — Ben Salmon

Pleasure, no matter how desirable, is never innocent: it's always presupposing and assuming a certain kind of social order, one usually shot through structures of domination. — Cornel West

I used to feel afraid of the future, always assuming the worst. But now I've realized that my worst fears have already happened, and I've survived them! I've walked into the fire and made it out alive. Only the loss of a close loved one could have "woken me up" to reality in the same way. — Elizabeth Berrien

SK: What causes a person to be transgender?

MS: I think the question should be flipped around: What's the cause for assuming that one's gender identity has to be the one that you are born with? When I first came into this job, I was much more comfortable about people's sexuality than I was with people's gender identity. But when you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. It's a part of the spectrum of people's realities. Then you stop wondering about the cause and you start realizing it's a part of reality. — Susan Kuklin

No one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. — Dalai Lama

Intelligent women make the mistake of assuming that if they hold a higher degree, they can hold their own in a political debate, and they have a good understanding of mid-caps — Sherry Argov

Just as we would not traditionally assume that someone is literate if they can read but not write, we should not assume that someone possesses media literacy if they can consume but not express themselves — Henry Jenkins

Women leading big corporations or assuming various important social and political roles is still considered newsworthy, which clearly shows the need to further support and enhance the role of women in society. — Guler Sabanci

I assume that a sufficiently skilled will be able to do anything not explicitly forbidden by the hardware. — Bjarne Stroustrup

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. — Iain Pears

The leaky-replacement hypothesis - assuming for the moment that it's correct - provides the strongest possible evidence for the closeness of Neanderthals and modern humans. The two may or may not have fallen in love; still, they made love. Their hybrid children may or may not have been regarded as monsters; nevertheless someone - perhaps Neanderthals at first, perhaps humans - cared for them. Some of these hybrids survived to have kids of their own, who, in turn, had kids, and so on up to the present day. Even now, at least thirty thousand years after the fact, the signal is discernible: all non-Africans, from the New Guineans to the French to the Han Chinese, carry somewhere between one and four percent Neanderthal DNA. One — Elizabeth Kolbert

I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven! — Giordano Bruno

My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming that in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal.' You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again. — Salman Rushdie

Being a grownup means assuming responsibility for yourself, for your children, and - here's the big curve - for your parents. — Wendy Wasserstein

Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better. — William S. Burroughs

I don't know what to do about him, Sammy." (Jackie)

"It's not what you do about him. It's what you do with him. Grab him by those big, manly arms that I'm assuming he has, and show him what New York has to offer. — Ali Novak

All you have to do is to make it your business to find out what people want ~ instead of assuming it, instead of telling them.
The one rule that sums up the job to be done ~ the one formula that is fully in harmony with the real world ~ the secret of success is:
Find out what people want and help them get it! — Harry Browne

For the modern economist this is very difficult to understand. He is used to measuring the "standard of living" by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is "better off" than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. Thus, if the purpose of clothing is a certain amount of temperature comfort and an attractive appearance, the task is to attain this purpose with the smallest possible effort, that is, with the smallest annual destruction of cloth and with the help of designs that involve the smallest possible input of toil. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. — E.F. Schumacher

Is anything going to kill me if I use your bathroom?" I finally asked.
"Knowing you?" Pritkin's voice was muffled since he hadn't raised his head.
I frowned. "Is that a yes?"
A couple of fingers came up to massage his temple. "That is a no. Assuming you didn't bring anything deadly along with you. — Karen Chance

I am a prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume. — Italo Calvino

[The greatest barriers to forming alliances] are not figuring out what would make others want to join with you. Assuming that what excites you excites others. Spend more time assuming people have good reasons for what they do or say and then figure out those good reasons. — John Daly

Georgie was done kissing first. The next person she kissed was going to have to do all the work. Assuming she ever found anybody who thought she was worth it. — Rainbow Rowell

I assume that to prevent illness in later life, you should never have been born at all. — George Bernard Shaw

The notorious tendency of conservative apologists and New Age paperback writers alike is to leap from mere possibility to the right to believe. "If there might be space aliens, we can assume there are." "If the idea of Atlantis is not impossible, we can take it for granted." "If the traditional view of gospel authorship cannot be definitievely debunked, we can go right on assuming it's truth." No, you can't. — Robert M. Price

They took 3-D digital photographs of my entire body. I had to pose stark naked, assuming a kind of Spider-Man position. After a minute, one of the technicians pointed to my genitals and said, Um, we're not getting enough data there ... It wasn't what you think. It turns out that the fancy digital camera doesn't pick up dark areas too well, and they were having trouble because of the hair down there. I actually had to spray on this highlighter stuff. (On having digital photos taken for the invisible man role in the film Hollow Man) — Kevin Bacon

I don't think there's a conflation between somebody's personal wealth and whether they should run for office or not, assuming that they're not actually pursuing policies that help them make a lot of money. — Julie Roginsky

Always assume that a lucky hit will not be repeated. — Mason Cooley

General assumptions often lead to erroneous conclusions, but one cannot go far wrong in always assuming that whatever one's government is saying is a lie. — Michel Templet

Obviously there are some organizations that go out on the street and say we want an end to the capitalist system. But obviously that is not going to happen as a result of just assuming that stance. — Angela Davis

I don't consider my marriages as failures! It's idiotic to assume that because a marriage ends, it's failed. — Margaret Mead

He smiled. "I suppose I thought we'd have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair's-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers."
"And bickering."
"Always that, yes."
"Assuming I want to marry at all."
"True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything."
"And you're mad enough to think it could work - one day?"
He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. "I think it would be heaven."
She trembled, then. "You have a very strange idea of heaven."
"Kiss me and see. — Y.S. Lee

In the context of 1948, 1984 seemed dreadfully convincing. But tyrants, after all, are mortal and circumstances change. Recent developments in Russia and recent advances in science and technology have robbed Orwell's book of some of its gruesome verisimilitude. A nuclear war will, of course, make nonsense of everybody's predictions. But, assuming for the moment that the Great Powers can somehow refrain from destroying us, we can say that it now looks as though the odds were more in favor of something like Brave New World than of something like 1984. — Aldous Huxley

It is woefully hard to find good, or even merely literate, writers, and they laugh at me when I say that sloppy, go-as-you-please writing carries less authority than decent prose. You must remember our public, they say. And indeed that is what I do, and I think the public is fully able to deal with the best they can produce. Patronizing the public, and assuming that it hangs, breathless, upon what it reads in the papers, is almost the worst of journalistic sins. — Robertson Davies

The familial rupture led to Prince becoming a person who cannot trust others, and must be in dictatorial control of everything around him, Leeds explained, "Anyone assuming any kind of control frightens the hell out of him. So much of what he does is driven by fear, fear of someone else having control. — Toure

The thought came over me: am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness, the apathy and the hyperbolical & most asinine stupidity of those fat-headed oafs, and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience & assiduity? Must I from day to day sit chained to this chair, prisoned with in these four bare walls, while these glorious summer suns are burning in heaven & the year is revolving in its richest glow & declaring at the close of every summer day [that] the time I am losing will never come again? — Claire Harman

The chime wasn't the most pleasant sound in the world to wake up to, but Eric had awakened to far worse in the past. Gunfire was always a sure way to go from dead to the world to more alive than you'd ever been, assuming none of the bullets actually struck you. — Evan Currie

The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities. — Victor Hugo

Let us face it: 'deep down' nobody in his right mind can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always lived and will live hereafter. — Erik Erikson

I won't make shorthand films, because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick, manufactured truths. — John Cassavetes

But sometimes you drive me nuts with your lack of confidence in your own abilities."
"I know! I drive myself nuts. I've just never been able to figure out what my abilities even are, so how can I have confidence in them?"
"Well then, instead of assuming you can't do anything, why don't you assume you can do everything?"
"I'm starting to, Kelsey. I'm trying, anyway."
"So make a list of things you like to do and can do well. — Nina Lane

The argument that the chemical and drug companies often make, to counter the growing movement of natural or alternative medicine is similar to my warning about kissing cobras. They will say things like, "Not all things natural are good for you" and "Even walking to the bathroom in the morning carries risks!" They then trot out extreme, obvious examples like drinking hemlock, or kissing cobras, people falling down stairs in their house, and the like. Okay Mr. Chemicalman, some natural things can kill you, like CEOs of chemical companies who poison almost everything they touch with their products? That's assuming of course that CEOs are natural. — Steve Bivans

No one ever gets tired of loving. But everyone gets tired of waiting, assuming, hearing lies, and hurting. — Megan Fox

We have learned more about the brain in the last fifteen years than in all prior human history, and the mind, once considered out of reach, is finally assuming center stage. — Michio Kaku

As students grow more and more accustomed to assuming materialism and naturalism in their academic work, the concept of creation by God gradually tends to become less real to them. It is not so much that any single finding undermines their faith; rather, the day-to-day practice of thinking in naturalistic terms about academic subjects makes it awkward to think differently when it comes to religion. — Phillip E. Johnson

How do you want to die?" the giant asked in a booming voice. He began to circle her as well. She moved with him, assessing. "Any way you please, assuming it's quick," she replied. "You?" "Slow. Making love to a beautiful woman." "What if I just give you a kiss before I kill you? — Lizzy Ford

People and organizations other than doctors increasingly are assuming power to decide which medications to prescribe or procedures to undertake. More and more, decisions about personal healthcare are no longer made by the treating physicians in consultation with their patients, and based on the doctors' expertise. — Bob Barr

If somebody kills me, at least I won't be accused of murder. Well, assuming all my clones have alibis. — Jarod Kintz

If we analyse the supernova data by assuming the Copernican principle is correct and get out something unphysical, I think we should start questioning the Copernican principle ... . Whatever our theoretical predilections, they will in the end have to give way to the observational evidence. — George F. R. Ellis

Aesthetic and utilitarian considerations aside," I said, "Those mittens don't particularly make sense. Why would you want to hitchhike to the North Pole? Isn't the whole gimmick of Christmas that there's home delivery? You get up there, all you're going to find is a bunch of exhausted, grumpy elves. Assuming, of course, that you accept the mythical presence of a workshop up there, when we all know there isn't even a pole at the North Pole, and if global warming continues, there won't be any ice, either."
"Why don't you just fuck off?" the woman replied. Then she took her mittens and got out of there. — Rachel Cohn

In the theory of psycho-analysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure. — Sigmund Freud

THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying long ago." I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, in assuming that I am capable of flying. — Anton Chekhov

The older man cocked his head and gave a laugh, "We get all the ladies. But for some reason I don't think you're here looking for me." "I don't know," Kat said. "I'm always in the market for good rappelling harness." "For you, my dear, nothing but the best." "But you are right about something. I'm actually trying to find
" "Young Mr. Hale, I'm assuming." Kate blushed. "Let me guess
I'm not the only one?" "Maybe. But you're the one i hope finds him." He gave a wink and walked away, and Kat didn't feel alone anymore in the big room full of people. — Ally Carter

She was lost.
Stumbling around the uneven floors and precarious book towers falling against each other for support, Alice realised she would have to do the unthinkable and talk loudly in a bookshop.
Maybe even shout.
Where were the staff?
Where were all the people who had ever read or owned these volumes? Where were the writers who created them? She walked on carefully through this purgatory of print, assuming the stoic reserve of a war widow seeking a lost husband among the silent names blurring past. — Josh Redman

Would be to start local. Assuming — Peter James

The biggest misconception usually is to assume that I am a scientist and that I work for scientists. I work for the public to access the surreal and fantastical in science. — Nelly Ben Hayoun

It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists. — Jack Vance

So much relies on one person assuming the other is telling the truth. If a person can lie to you about one thing, he can lie about something else. — Meg Rosoff

Only by assuming an infinitesimally small unit for observation - a differential of history (that is, the common tendencies of men) - and arriving at the art of integration (finding the sum of the infinitesimals) can we hope to discover the laws of history. — Leo Tolstoy

You can't just look at someone and guess their sexuality. There's no point in assuming that every gay man has just one personality type. — Cameron Monaghan

As you make a prototype, assume you are right and everyone else is wrong. When you share your prototype, assume you are wrong and everyone else is right. — Diego Rodriguez Telechea

Google understood that if you're just a search engine, people assume you're a very, very good search engine. — Rory Sutherland

We seek your blessings and we seek your support. On one side there is the Shahzada and on the other side there is a tea seller. There is Namdaar and there is a Kamdaar. But we assure that after assuming responsibility we will not rest for a minute. All the time will be for the people. — Narendra Modi

His grin turns boyish. Assuming you don't clock an angel for pissing you off. — Susan Ee

The rich strutted around, assuming they'd be safe, so long as they stayed in the good parts of town. But Lila knew there were no good parts. Only smart parts and stupid parts, and she was quick enough to know which one to play. — V.E Schwab

I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world

I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make you think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.

Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer. — Adrienne Rich

I'm assuming those are Daimons. (Susan)
No, they're Avon ladies. (Ravyn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong. — David Brin

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be, by definition, the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being. — John Perry

The scramble to get higher, to be seen, the cycle of creation and rebellion, everyone assuming they were saying something new or doing something new, something profound
when the truth was tat it had all been done a million billion times. — Jess Walter

One of the joys of being an actor is that you're always learning new things. And I've been doing this since I was 19, so there's been a lot of new things I have learned for each part. I always assume that I can do it. — Richard Gere

If everybody's behavior can be explained by simple stupidity and greed, there's no point in assuming a conspiracy. — P. J. Plauger

From a philosophical perspective, Linde's little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force behind our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation. — Jim Holt

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever ... And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. — Horace Mann

In the one instance, the dreamerloses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestionsuntilhe finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings, ... forgotten. In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. — Edgar Allan Poe

Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole? — Immanuel Kant

I know, I know: it can be frustrating as hell. But people have an unfortunate habit of assuming they understand the reality just because they understood the analogy. You dumb down brain surgery enough for a preschooler to think he understands it, the little tyke's liable to grab a microwave scalpel and start cutting when no one's looking. — Peter Watts

The one place where I can relax is on the golf course with my teammates and buddies, assuming I'm hitting the golf ball well. If I'm not, well, that is another story. — Carson Palmer

Start by assuming the market is always wrong, so if you copy everybody else on Wall Street, you're doomed to do poorly. — George Soros

Tohr shrugged. "Assuming he's kept the same ones on, they're a total of five. Three cousins. That porn star Zypher - "
Rhage harrumphed at that. Clearly, even though he was now very happily mated, he felt like the race had one, and only one, sex legend - and it was him. — J.R. Ward

Assuming a specific resource is high cost is often a path to disruption when someone makes a different assumption. — Steven Sinofsky

Furthermore, they must learn not to make the elementary mistake of assuming that because a word contains a negative suffix or prefix it is necessarily a negative word. In-, for instance, almost always implies negation but not with invaluable, while -less is equally negative, as a rule, but not with priceless. — Bill Bryson

WHEN I finally slowed and looked around, I saw with amazement I'd trotted sixteen blocks in about three minutes. Summer Olympics, here I come. Assuming they held the races at night. — MaryJanice Davidson

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad' ... By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. — George Orwell

I can see that cinema seems to be finished. Everybody has a bigger screen at home. I'm assuming eventually you won't need a screen at all - these iPhones will just project. — David Hockney

In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth. — Jack Kornfield

That's why I think it hurt us, whereas these other bands [I'm assuming he means the other Big 3 -Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica] they kept doing their thing, just METAL. METAL. METAL. METAL. We didn't do that, we took a little but of a turn. — Charlie Benante

Let there be two possible things, A and B, one of which is such that it is necessary that it exists, and let us assume that there is more perfection in A than in B. Then, at least, we can explain why A should exist rather than B and can foresee which of them will exist; indeed, this can be demonstrated, that is, rendered certain from the nature of the thing. — Gottfried Leibniz

Improve relationships with others by assuming that they can hear everything you say about them — Stephen Covey