Assumption Quotes - page 2

Mathematics is a presuppositionless science. To found it I do not need God, as does Kronecker, or the assumption of a special faculty of our understanding attuned to the principle of mathematical induction, as does Poincaré, or the primal intuition of Brouwer, or, finally, as do Russell and Whitehead, axioms of infinity, reducibility, or completeness, which in fact are actual, contentual assumptions that cannot be compensated for by consistency proofs. (David Hilbert)
In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school. View quote
Thucydides
What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better. The former assumption, I believe is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. View quote
H. L. Mencken
Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction. View quote
Christopher Hitchens
If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance. View quote
Orville Wright
The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable. View quote
Ned Rorem
It is an assumption brought forth countless of times in various contexts that the world would be better, drifting slower towards the ruin, if women had the "power"; if political leadership, decision making, government and economic life was in the hands of women. I think reality, the observation material, supports the assumption. View quote
Pentti Linkola
If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical: only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe. View quote
Paul Karl Feyerabend
The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it. In other words, although the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer, it is independent of him. In this sense music, too, has no aim (object), and the mere fact that this particular art is so closely bound up with our feelings by no means justifies the assumption that its aesthetic principles depend on this union. View quote
Eduard Hanslick
I believe that we should take every opportunity to challenge the assumption that our European allies are doing us a favor whenever they provide us with the necessary facilities from which to defend their own continent. (Chester Bowles)
Only on the assumption of belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith. View quote
Max Weber
There are two fairly standard approaches to political power used by those who seek it. Some seek power with the assumption that the citizenry are the source of legitimacy and are to be treated with respect. Others concentrate on identifying whatever insecurities there are within the citizenry and on exploiting them. View quote
John Ralston Saul
The utopia of the Populists was in the past, not in the future. According to the agrarian myth, the health of the state was proportionate to the degree to which it was dominated by the agricultural class, and this assumption pointed to the superiority of an earlier age. View quote
Richard Hofstadter
The best way to do research is to make a radical assumption and then assume it's true. For me, I use the assumption that object oriented programming is the way to go. View quote
Bill Joy
What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption. View quote
Bryan Cranston
Since the dawn of the Internet, I have always operated under the assumption that if the government or corporations have technological capability to do something, they are doing it - whatever the laws we happen to know about might say. View quote
Douglas Rushkoff
I like the assumption that everyone is trying his best, and we should all just be kind to each other. View quote
Christina Baker Kline
A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.' View quote
Paul Watzlawick
The inquiries of the jurist are in truth prosecuted much as inquiry in physic and physiology was prosecuted before observation had taken the place of assumption. View quote
Henry James Sumner Maine
And the Russians certainly don't have it. If a woman shows up in a fur coat, I just assume she's a crook. And that's me, the nice American. The assumption that you can't make money honestly is a killer. (Esther Dyson)
If some woman tells me how she feels about something, my immediate assumption is that she wants an answer, or that she wants me to solve her problem. In fact, all she wants to do is share, or show how she feels. View quote
Fred Ward
If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption. View quote
Henry Hampton
I was under the assumption that the first job you get out of college is the job you have for the rest of your life. That's how my parents were; my parents have been teachers for as long as I've known 'em. I was worried that I'd gotten into something that I was going to hate. View quote
Jack McBrayer
I don't personally try to balance my work because I operate under the assumption that anyone reading or watching my stuff isn't having a particularly balanced day anyway. But negative attitudes just amuse me more than positive ones. View quote
Lev Yilmaz