32 Quotes About Making Assumptions

In our fast-paced world, making assumptions often feels like second nature. We find ourselves filling in the blanks about people's intentions, future outcomes, or even day-to-day tasks without a second thought. Yet, assumptions can cloud our judgment, lead to misunderstandings, and create unnecessary barriers. To encourage mindfulness and reflection, we've compiled a selection of insightful quotes that delve into the nature and impact of assumptions. These quotes not only challenge us to rethink our automatic inferences but also inspire us to embrace clarity and open-mindedness in our interactions. Whether you're on a journey of personal growth or simply seeking food for thought, these words of wisdom will encourage you to see beyond presumptions.

1. “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” - Abraham Maslow

2. “Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make -- bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake -- if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you'd made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.” - Lemony Snicket

3. “It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God.” - H.L. Mencken

4. “A tornado of thought is unleashed after each new insight. This in turn results in an earthquake of assumptions. These are natural disasters that re-shape the spirit.” - Vera Nazarian

5. “I had just heard tales that the Valkyrie were large warriors, akin to Amazons.”“If you’re the sole survivor of an army attacked by us, are you going to say we had our asses handed to us by petite, nubile females, or by she-monsters who can bench Buicks?” - Kresley Cole

6. “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” - Jonathan Swift

7. “Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.” - Marshall McLuhan

8. “To assume is to presume.” - Jude Morgan

9. “Life would be impossible on such a planet. It wouldn't get enough heat and light, and if it rotated there would be total darkness half of every day. There wouldn't be any native inhabitants. You couldn't expect life---which is fundamentally dependent on light---to develop under such extreme conditions of light deprivation. Half of every axial rotation spent in Darkness! No, nothing could exist under conditions like that.” - Isaac Asimov

10. “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

11. “We never look beyond our assumptions and what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves.” - Muriel Barbery

12. “Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” [Charlan] Nemeth [a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley] says. “It wakes us right up.” - Jonah Lehrer

13. “Don’t build roadblocks out of assumptions.” - Lorii Myers

14. “Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.” - George Eliot

15. “They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another.” - Pandora Poikilos

16. “My point is this — you don't know. When I was first here, people looked at my hair, noticed apples on my tray, and thought 'hippie.' Then, from 'hippie' they thought 'druggie.' From there it went to 'will get me in trouble' and 'not worth my time,' and then they stopped thinking at all. No one bothered to find out if what they thought about me was true. No one wanted to hear what I thought. No one cared what I believed in. No one cared about talking to me or asking what my plans were for the day or night. And then came you. Don't let what you think you know make him into what I could have been. Don't become someone who doesn't think, just because you don't like him for some reason. Because, quite frankly, I like how you think. Except for now, of course.” - Rebecca McKinsey

17. “If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don't tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don't understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions.” - Miguel Ruiz

18. “[...] a familiar art historical narrative [...] celebrates the triumph of the expressive individual over the collective, of innovation over tradition, and autonomy over interdependence. [...] In fact, a common trope within the modernist tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries involved the attempt to reconstruct or recover the lost ideal of an art that is integrated with, rather than alienated from, the social. By and large, however, the dominant model of avant-garde art during the modern period assumes that shared or collective values and systems of meaning are necessarily repressive and incapable of generating new insight or grounding creative praxis.” - Grant H. Kester

19. “Any faith that does not command the one who holds it is not a real belief; it is a pseudo belief only. And it might shock some of us profoundly if we were brought suddenly face to face with our beliefs and forced to test them in the fires of practical living.” - A.W. Tozer

20. “Lahat ng mga salitang yan may dating sa'yo. Sabi kasi ng isip mo.” - Bob Ong

21. “The professor argues against measuring effectiveness in the shallow short-term in the "fierce humanities," for teaching that seeks not merely learning, but unlearning, that seeks to unsettle knowledge and assumptions in ways more fundamental than any exam can or should test.” - Cary Nelson

22. “... always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.” - Mortimer Jerome Adler

23. “You figured that the only way I'd be happy is if I did the things you thought would be best for me.” - Jodi Picoult

24. “Here we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.” - Vernor Vinge

25. “He treats the person as if they were fully whole.We become what others expect us to be. Dad expected me to get better and even assumed I would have something helpful to say. Funny how we rise and fall to the assumptions of others.” - Nathan Foster

26. “Perhaps, if you weren't so busy regarding my shortcomings, you'd find that I do possess redeeming qualities, discreet as they may be.  I notice when the sky is blue.  I smile down at children.  I laugh at any innocent attempt at humor.  I quietly carry the burdens of others as though they were my own.  And I say 'I'm sorry' when you don't.  I am not without fault, but I am not without goodness either.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

27. “Assumptions are unopened windows that foolish birds fly into, and their broken bodies are evidence gathered too late.” - Bryan Davis

28. “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” - Alan Alda

29. “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

30. “Assumptions equal a loss of pride and the sting of defeat.” - Donna Lynn Hope

31. “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 Whitehead

32. “One’s opinion should only be as strong as one’s knowledge on the matter.” - Eric Hirzel