Quotes & Sayings About Not Assuming Things

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

One of the things that makes it so challenging is that we're constructing the Station hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth and we're doing it one piece at a time For the International Space Station we do not have the privilege of assuming the Space Station is on the ground before we take it up one piece at a time. So we have to be very clever about the testing that we do and the training that we do to make sure that each mission is successful, and that each piece and each mission goes just as it's planned. — Tamara E. Jernigan

No one has the right to not assume that the business cycle will turn! Every five years or so, you have got to assume that something bad will happen. — Jamie Dimon

Charms and oaths and guardian spirits were all the product of a need for something to believe in because people didn't believe in themselves, a need to let problems resolve on their own rather than confront them. People were predominantly fearful of disruption, even of the things they found overbearing, even as they attempted to wish them away. It was why they invented heroes. It was why the world suffered through long periods of stagnation between innovations. Because rather than change the things that needed change, people preferred to cower and wait until a hero arrived to do it for them. Assuming by that point it was not already too late. — Sean DeLauder

They're ghosts, surely, and Rabbit absolutely believes in them. There are things in the world, strange machinations of physics and chemistry,queer intersections of biology and theology, that Rabbit hasn't the slightest interest in assuming he'll ever understand or be able to solve. They're simply there to be believed in, and Rabbit is a born believer. He wants to believe. He has always thought of life as pregnant with possibility-- a freak twister or wardrobe the only thing separating him from another world-- so ghosts, spirits, aliens and supreme beings coexist within Rabbit with ease. There's a kind of beauty in accepting the possibility, if not the plausibility, of everything imaginable. — Kate Racculia

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

Mama Mo does not insist. She simply makes things a reality by assuming they are such: — Gillian Flynn

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

Ask me if Christianity (my version of it, yours, the Pope's, whoever's) is orthodox, meaning true, and here's my honest answer: a little, but not yet. Assuming by Christianity you mean the Christian understanding of the world and God, Christian opinions on soul, text, and culture I'd have to say that we probably have a couple of things right, but a lot of things wrong, and even more spreads before us unseen and unimagined. But at least our eyes are open! To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall. — Brian D. McLaren

A poor man is not disposed to quick and high resentment when he is among the rich: he is apt to yield to others, for he knows others are above him: he is not stiff and self-willed; he is patient with hard fare; he expects no other than to be despised, and takes it patiently; he does not take it heinously that he overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in a lowly place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him, but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian. — Jonathan Edwards

Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly planning for it, envisioning things that weren't the case. This was the working of the will. This was what gave the world purpose and direction. Not what was there but what was not. — Jhumpa Lahiri

There are things you can do with this knowledge, like always save room for dessert. Seriously, imagine planning a vacation with the peak-end rule in mind. Your overall pleasure will be enhanced if you end it on a high note. It's certainly something for me to keep in mind in planning my workshops. Maybe people will believe the whole presentation was terrific if I end with something especially compelling. You should also keep in mind that here is a way your brain consistently distorts your perception of your own happiness and misery. Politicians use this principle all the time - that's why they propose their most audacious policies just after they're elected, assuming that we'll be lulled into not caring, as we adapt to their new reality. Remember GWB's attempt at social security reform? — Anonymous

There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion. A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people. — John Stuart Mill

I know assuming is easy, and sometimes, reality does not go in the direction of the assumption, but at least, it gives us hope that things may go just right. — Aishah Madadiy

It's not that i don't want you. I lied, earlier, when i said i was protecting you. I'm protecting myself. I don't want to be your rebound, Jacqueline."
"Then why are you assuming that role? It's not what i want, either."
"What am i gonna do with you?"
"I can think of a couple things. — Tammara Webber

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

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

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious. — Andre Gide

The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of design in nature. Belief in design in nature is based upon the belief in God. Things are as they are whether there is a God or not. Logically, to believe in design one must start with God. He, or it, is not a conclusion but a datum. You may begin by assuming a creator, and then say he did this or that; but you cannot logically say that because certain things exist, therefore there is a God who made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion. And it is an assumption that explains nothing. — Chapman Cohen

[Abusers] blame the world - circumstances, other people - for their defeats, misfortune, misconduct, and failures. The abuser firmly believes that his life is swayed by currents and persons over which he has no influence whatsoever (he has an external locus of control).

But there are even subtler variants of this psychological defense mechanism. Not infrequently an abuser will say: "I made a mistake because I am stupid", implying that his deficiencies and inadequacy are things he cannot help having and cannot change. This is also an alloplastic defense because it abrogates responsibility.

Many abusers exclaim: "I misbehaved because I completely lost my temper." On the surface, this appears to be an autoplastic defense with the abuser assuming responsibility for his misconduct. But it could be interpreted as an alloplastic defense, depending on whether the abuser believes that he can control his temper. — Sam Vaknin

Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you are criticizing the philosophy of an epoch, do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which its exponents feel it necessary explicitly to defend. There will be some fundamental assumptions which adherents to all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them. With these assumptions a certain limited number of types of philosophic systems are possible, and this group of systems constitutes the philosophy of the epoch. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful as a gift, is to not ever let anybody else define me; that for me to define myself ... and I think that helped me a lot in assuming a leadership position. — Wilma Mankiller

At this very moment you are probably basing your value on how other people value you, even though most of the time, you don't even know what these people really think. You are assuming what they think based on behavior you interpreted. In truth, most people don't think about you at all. They are too focused on their own stuff. And if they do think about you, they probably don't think what you think they think. You are most likely projecting your own fears of not being good enough onto them. What you think they think tells you more about your own opinion of yourself than theirs. — Kimberly Giles