Assumptions Quotes

The Theory of Groups is a branch of mathematics in which one does something to something and then compares the result with the result obtained from doing the same thing to something else, or something else to the same thing.

James Newman

The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.

Henry David Thoreau

I never guess. It is a shocking habit -- destructive to the logical faculty.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.

George Eliot

You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions.

Denis Waitley

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.

It had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table. In warming himself at French social theories he had brought away no smell of scorching. We may handle even extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving, and preference for armorial bearings in our own ease, link us indissolubly with the established order.

George Eliot

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

Samuel Johnson

The narrower the mind, the broader the statement.

Ted Cook

Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.

G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenb

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenb

A theory is the more impressive the greater is the simplicity of its premises, the more different are the kinds of things it relates and the more extended the range of its applicability.

Albert Einstein

Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.

Albert Einstein

It is theory that decides what can be observed.

Albert Einstein

Our minds have the need to know. When we dont know we make assumptions - they make us feel safer than not knowing. And we are pretty much always making assumptions.

Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreem

Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of speculation; but which ought to be called Gambling.

William Cobbett

The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.

George Eliot

The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.

J.B.S. Haldane

Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.

Alexander Herzen

If there were no bad speculations there could be no good investments; if there were no wild ventures there would be no brilliantly successful enterprises.

F. W. Hirst