Quotes & Sayings About Presuming

For this reason I believe we need to do philosophy with children now more than ever. We have increasingly taken away their free time, their ability to make up their own games, their ability to solve their own problems, their ability to be by themselves and figure out the world on their own terms. We need to restore their relationship with the world around them so they can learn who they are and what matters to them. Doing philosophy with children helps to achieve just that. It restores their relationship with their own and others' thinking, which is important for creating a community of inquiry and collaboration. In the process, self-knowledge is gained, and with that character and integrity can develop. Once again, we have to embrace the uncertainty inherent in the pursuit of knowledge, as opposed to presuming its certainty. — Anonymous

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. — Abraham Lincoln

I have three treasures that I keep and prize: one is kindness, second is frugality, and third is not presuming to take precedence over others. By kindness one can be brave, by frugality one can reach out, and by not presuming to take precedence one can survive effectively. If one gives up kindness and courage, gives up frugality and breadth, and gives up humility for aggressiveness, one will die. The exercise of kindness in battle leads to victory, the exercise of kindness in defense leads to security. — Sun Tzu

The world is not fair. If you persist in presuming it is, you will create a lot of unnecessary misery for yourself. — Fred Green

That won't excuse me for presuming to give my heart to you. It's not your fault you broke it. — Julie Berry

I love being photographed, or I should say I love the art of photography. It's about people taking photographs of you, stealing them, and then presuming or assuming or captioning. Words can never be taken back, photographs can never be taken back, nothing can ever be taken back. — Madonna Ciccone

Seven hundred thousand men are said to have perished in the first two expeditions, which had been thus commenced and carried on by the pious zeal of the Christian church, and in the total amount, several million were found numbered with the dead: the awful effects of religious fanaticism presuming upon the aid of heaven. — Elihu Palmer

A man should remind himself that an object of faith is not scientifically demonstrable, lest presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, he should produce inconclusive reasons and offer occasion for unbelievers to scoff at a faith based on such ground. — Thomas Aquinas

Nor did she like society's way of presuming she was unhappy because she had not found the right guy. — John Grisham

Whenever you speak to someone, you are presuming the two of you have a certain degree of familiarity - which your words might alter. So every sentence has to do two things at once: convey a message and continue to negotiate that relationship. — Steven Pinker

Too many instances there are of daring men, who by presuming to sound the deep things of religion, have cavilled and argued themselves out of all religion. — Thomas A Kempis

Being in the habit of saying "Thank you," of making sure that people receive attention so they know you value them, of not presuming that people will always be there
this is a good habit, regardless ... make sure to give virtual and actual high-fives to those who rock and rock hard. — Sarah Wendell

One should share their dreams with others right away in the morning. One can use my Lightning Dreamwork process. First, the person shares the dream without being interrupted. Then each person shares their thoughts about the dream by saying, "If it were my dream," not presuming to tell the person what the dream means in an objective way. Lastly, the dreamer is helped to make an action plan for embodying the energy and guidance from the dream. — Robert Moss

The trouble with Senator Long is that he is suffering from halitosis of the intellect.That's presuming Senator Long has an intellect. — Harold L. Ickes

If I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the common experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention the unimportant fact of my having done that violence to good manners, in the days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea. If I might make so bold as to defend that extravagant conception, Mr Merdle, I would hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the times of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally laudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the preposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good and an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence that it has been brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of the public examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. — Charles Dickens

That Francis Bacon retains his reputation gained, is not strange to any that knows him. The unusual words wherewith he had spangled his speech, were rather gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, and like to serve both for occasions to report and means to remember his argument. Certain sentences of his , somewhat obscure, and as it were presuming upon their capacities will, I fear, make some of them rather admire than commend him. In sum, all is as well as words can make it, and if it please Her Majesty to add deeds, the Bacon may be too hard for the Cook. — Edward Coke

We both grew so used to each other, so comfortable with the naturalness and ease of our friendship, that we became sloppy about keeping our relationship a secret. It was not that we were physically demonstrative or obviously in love, more that it had become impossible for us to hide our close involvement. We had gradually acquired the unmistakable air of old-love: finishing each other's sentences and speaking to each other with an offhand, presuming intimacy that was eventually noticed. — Kate Kerrigan

To young women, black and white, Baker embodied the possibility of escaping the restrictions that defined conventional femininity. Authoritative yet unassuming, self-confident and assertive, forcing others to take her seriously simply by presuming that they would, Baker was a revelation. — Barbara Ransby

I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms, — Alan Greenspan

For the thing that troubles us about the industrial economy is that it is not comprehensive enough, that, moreover, it tends to destroy what it does not comprehend, and that it is dependent upon much that it does not comprehend. In attempting to criticize such an economy, we naturally pose against it an economy that does not leave anything out, and we can say without presuming too much that the first principle of the Kingdom of God is that it includes everything; in it, the fall of every sparrow is significant. We are in it, whether we know it or not, and whether we wish to be or not. — Wendell Berry

Sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency. — William Shakespeare

If the supernatural in a conventional sense is no longer possible, what remains after the "death of God" is an occulted, hidden world. Philosophically speaking, the enigma we face is how to confront this world, without immediately presuming that it is identical to the world-for-us (the world of science and religion), and without simply disparaging it as an irretrievable and inaccessible world-in-itself. — Eugene Thacker

In the case of an artistic practice that performs female narcissism..., the threat lies in its making superfluous the arbiters of artistic value. Already presuming her desirability, [she] obviates the modern critical system; loving herself, she needs no confirmation of her artistic 'value — Amelia Jones

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. — John Stuart Mill

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. — Akhenaton

It is time Australian Muslims stop being treated as negotiable citizens in their own country. It is time people stop 'tolerating' us, presuming some right to decide if we have a place in our own home. — Randa Abdel-Fattah

Loners live among the mob, so the mob mistakes us for its own, presuming and assuming. When the mob gets too close, the truth is revealed. Running or walking away, chased or free, any which way, we tell the mob in effect I don't need you. — Anneli Rufus

You're presuming too much by using the word legacy - presuming that someone is going to care. — Michael Bolton

Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying "I am saved" is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee. — Charles Spurgeon

By contrast with this extensive Republican use of the press, the Federalists did little. Presuming that they had a natural right to rule, they had no need to stir up public opinion, which was what demagogues did in exploiting the people's ignorance and innocence.37 Federalist editors and printers of newspapers like John Fenno and his Gazette of the United States did exist, but most of these supporters of the national government were conservative in temperament; they tended to agree with the Federalist gentry that artisan-printers had no business organizing political parties or engaging in electioneering. — Gordon S. Wood

Not long ago Congress voted, with much patriotic rhetoric, for the imposition of severe penalties upon anyone presuming to burn the flag of the United States. Yet the very Congressmen who passed this law are responsible, by acts of commission or omission, for burning, polluting, and plundering the territory that the flag is supposed to represent. Therein, they exemplified the peculiar and
perhaps fatal fallacy of civilization: the confusion of symbol with reality. — Alan W. Watts

I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I'm presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah's father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn't been around for years, and God knows Jessa's real story. So what I'm saying here, Sergeant, is that we're just a tad low on the reliable adult quota so you have no right to be all self-righteous about what Chaz did and if you're going to go around not talking to him when his only crime was wanting me to have what he has, then I think you're going to turn out to be a bit of a dud and you know something? I'm just a bit over life's little disappointments right now. Do you understand what I'm saying? — Melina Marchetta

Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move toward health. — Lao-Tzu

We are being punished, that's all." "What for?" he demanded, already on guard because there was a tone in her voice he hated. "For presuming. For thinking we could be happy. Happy because we decided we would be. — Doris Lessing

Ask a book publisher how many copies a book has sold, and he or she, presuming you're not the author, will probably try to remember the size of the first printing, then double it. If you're the author, the publisher will try to remember the number of copies that were shipped and cut that in half in order to avoid encouraging you to expect a big royalty check. — Michael Korda

Finally, I found what seemed at the time to be a lid of some sort. Presuming it was a toilet seat (but not really caring one way or the other) I lifted it up, then dropped my shorts and began to piss. Ahhh ... success. Then I stumbled back to bed and passed out. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what had actually happened. I woke to the sight of Junior standing over my bed with a look of disgust on his face. Hey, man. Did you pee in my suitcase? — Dave Mustaine

When our people were fed out of the common store, and laboured jointly together, glad was he could slip from his labour, or slumber over his taske he cared not how, nay, the most honest among them would hardly take so much true paines in a weeke, as now for themselves they will doe in a day: neither cared they for the increase, presuming that howsoever the harvest prospered, the generall store must maintaine them, so that wee reaped not so much Corne from the labours of thirtie, as now three or foure doe provide for themselves. — John Smith

Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain
from cosmology to psychology to economics
has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music. — Sam Harris

Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. — Alan Keyes

A funny thing happens when more than one knitter gathers in a public place. A solo knitter, presuming she is a woman, quickly fades into the backdrop like a potted palm or a quietly nursing mother. ... A single knitter is shorthand for "nothing to see here, move on."

But when knitters gather, we become incongruously conspicuous. We are a species that other people aren't used to seeing in flocks, like a cluster of Corgis, a dozen Elvis impersonators waiting for the elevator. — Clara Parkes

The presuming social view that mental health is not as serious as the media says it is, blocks progress. This too is political. — Tamara Hill

There is also a psychological phenomenon at work here that I believe is particularly male. A woman or girl
presuming one could be induced to take part in this sort of activity in the first place
having burned her hair and eyebrows would conclude that she had been lucky and reduce the amount of gas she put into the balloon next time. The man doesn't come to the same conclusion at all. He, singed and blackened, arrives at the point of view that he still has a margin of error to play with. After all, he isn't dead, and he's hardly likely to burn his eyebrows off again. They've already gone, history; he's moved on. There can be but one deduction
the dose needs to be increased. — Mark Barrowcliffe

They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You'd miss how he smiled, how his eyes glowed. And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along. — Neil Gaiman

I've been in very many situations where I've not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that's the way music was made. It doesn't need to be that way. It's taken me years years to find that out. — John Lydon

Get the Girl," he demanded. "She knows too much!"
Dammit. Why did people keep presuming that, and if it was true, why the hell couldn't my GPA reflect the fact? — Shannon Delany

There is always a danger that in our asceticism we shall be tempted to imitate the sufferings of Christ. This is a pious but godless ambition, for beneath it there always lurks the notion that it is possible for us to step into Christ's shoes and suffer as he did and kill the old Adam. We are then presuming to undertake that bitter work of eternal redemption which Christ himself wrought for us. The motive of asceticism was more limited--to equip us for better service and deeper humiliation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sig Sauer. Nine millimetres. Thirteen in the magazine. Big bullets. One of these hits you and it could blow your head off; something even the magic can't fix. Other than that you should be all right, presuming you remembered to wear the regulation above-ground micro-fibre jumpsuit recently patented by me. Then again, being a Recon jock, you probably didn't. — Eoin Colfer

I believe we must seek God's will, never presuming to identify it with our own program or power. — David Price

Since I'm presuming you don't mean you finally bought him a leash, let me say simply that there is a big difference between allowing an animal to ravage you and allowing yourself to be ravaged. One is common. The other is art. It is planned. Crafted, even. Only capable of being done by a master. — Richelle Mead

Cal: "I'm not presuming. I know exactly what you think about me. You think I'm an anal-retentive Armrest Nazi ... an arrogant Modelizer. You can't stand the way I talk, any of the subjects I choose to talk about, the imperious manner I order food in restaurants or tell cab drivers how much we owe them. You find my taste in women odious, the fact that I don't own a television an unforgivable sin, and the fact that I would choose to write a book about Saudi Arabia completely unfathomable. And you're also totally in love with me. If you weren't you wouldn't have pushed me into the pool earlier today when you saw Grazi walk in."
Every Boy's Got One — Meg Cabot

I'm presuming, though, that breaking and entering isn't your intent, unless you bring a lawyer in tow, should you be caught." He pursed his lips. "That could be convenient. — Kelley Armstrong

The position of the Self as unknowingness in a situation of the loss of the Other, although presuming an uneasiness, anxiety, despair and drifting, means above all 'I' "as infinite layers," never unified, total, closed but impregnated and embodied by and through others, and in that sense Self functions in a particular way as an inheritor of them (others). — Biljana Kasic

Partially satisfied by grazing on the first few pages of several books, and as a consequence, there are half-chewed novels lying all over the place. At least, I'm presuming they're lying all over the place; I seem to have temporarily lost most of them. When the World Cup is over, and we clear away the piles of betting slips and wall charts, some of them will, presumably, reappear. I wrote in this column recently about Muriel Spark's novels, their genius and their attractive brevity, but there is an obvious disadvantage to her concision: her books tend to get buried under things. I can put my hands on Dennis Lehane's historical novel The Given Day whenever I want, simply because it is seven hundred pages long. — Nick Hornby

With a book - presuming it's a good book - you can depend upon an outcome that adheres to the necessities of drama. The question will be answered. It has to be. The answer may not be happy; we can't guarantee a comedy. Sometimes tragedy strikes. But there will be a conclusion. Of that we can be sure. That's the whole point of a book. But in real life, there is no guarantee that any question will ever be answered. Real life is messy because we don't know where it's going to go. — Garth Stein

Oh, my young friends and fellow sinners! beware of presuming to exercise your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy! Let your faith be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment's notice! — Wilkie Collins

Mason, E, 2nd LT: I take this as a declaration of war. Presuming they don't line me up against a bulkhead and shoot me after my court martial tomorrow, I will be making sweet, sweet love to your sister by the week's end. This I solemnly vow
McNulty, J, Sgt: ezra don't joke about my sister I ****ing warned you
Mason, E, 2nd LT: sweet
McNulty, J, Sgt: chum
Mason, E, 2nd LT: sweet
McNulty, J, Sgt: mason
Mason, E, 2nd LT: lurrrrrrve — Amie Kaufman

Because ours is such a free and prosperous society, it is easier for Christians to feel secure by presuming on instead of depending on God's grace. To many believers become satisfied with physical blessings and have little desire for spiritual blessings. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

What a drug this little book is; to imbibe it is to find oneself presuming his process. I read and feel that same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself. It is not mere envy but a delusional quickening in the blood. — Patti Smith

The character of instrumental music ... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations. — Franz Liszt

Presuming I don't fuck up with the hydrazine, there's still the matter of burning hydrogen. I'm going to be setting a fire. In the Hab. On purpose. If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they'd all answer "fire." If you asked them what the result would be, they'd answer "death by fire. — Andy Weir

She said it had been hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time, the plane had been in the air - again, I'm presuming that it took off on time - for over an hour. — Ted Olson

Presuming that there is such a thing as "progress" when it comes to music, and that music is "better" now than it used to be, is typical of the high self-regard of those who live in the present. It is a myth. Creativity doesn't "improve. — David Byrne

On every project, there are always areas that everyone wants to shy away from due to either the political environment or a desire for conflict avoidance. As an architect, you are responsible for asking the tough questions and raising the issues so that they can be dealt with. As you address issues, avoid making statements; instead, craft what you are seeking as a series of questions. This approach allows you to avoid presuming information to be factual and allows for a discussion to begin. Take time to qualify the questions with the context of why you are asking them. It can help defuse some of the political tensions — Anonymous

When someone who is known for being comedic does something straight, it's always "a big breakthrough" or a "radical departure." Why is is no one ever says that if a straight actor does comedy? Are they presuming comedy is easier? — Carol Burnett