- Gold
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- Nov 07, 2020
Assumes Quotes
On the quiet assumptions behind ambition, risk, and order.
This collection looks at what people and systems assume without saying so, from entrepreneurs accepting risk to entire economic theories built on hidden premises. One even ties creative drama to the order it later disrupts. Related reflections continue in our Character collection.
- Last Updated on Aug 01, 2026
- Economic Theory
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- Nov 07, 2020
Every non-Marxist economic theory that treats human and non-human productive inputs as interchangeable assumes that the dehumanisation of human labour is complete. But if it could ever be completed, the result would be the end of capitalism as a system capable of creating and distributing value.
- Moon
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- Nov 07, 2020
It is clear that the nation that assumes stewardship of the Moon now will inherit stewardship of the galaxy in the coming millennium. I think the USA is ready for that challenge!
- He Or She
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- Nov 07, 2020
An entrepreneur assumes the risk and is dedicated and committed to the success of whatever he or she undertakes.
- Only
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- Nov 07, 2020
Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.
- Community
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- Nov 07, 2020
I grew up in a predominantly white community - Hinsdale, Illinois - and given that, I feel blessed because I could still count my experiences with blatant racism on two hands. I thought racism was the substitute teacher picking on you because she assumes that you're a delinquent, and she doesn't know you have the highest score in the class.
- Marriage
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- Nov 07, 2020
When men get together, they moan about their wives. The commentary provided on marriage between groups of men is typically one from a viewpoint that assumes marriage to be life's greatest, most unfun mistake. Not only is it often as disingenuous as Joe Biden's hairline, but it's incredibly harmful.
- Country
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- Nov 07, 2020
Anyone who assumes that this country is standing still is not a good American, or rather, he is an apathetic and dead one and makes no contribution to the society.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
Such being the nature of mental life, the business of psychology is primarily to describe in detail the various forms which attention or conation assumes upon the different levels of that life.
- Politics
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- Nov 07, 2020
The great disadvantage of our present electoral system is that it freezes the pattern of politics, and holds together the incompatible because everyone assumes that if a party splits it will be electorally slaughtered.
- Crafting
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- Nov 07, 2020
Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.
- Different
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- Nov 07, 2020
Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes different points of view.
- Divine
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- Nov 07, 2020
Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.
- Disapprove
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- Nov 07, 2020
When a judge assumes the power to decide which distinctions made in a statute are legitimate and which are not, he assumes the power to disapprove of any and all legislation, because all legislation makes distinctions.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own... Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
When authors who write literary fiction begin to write screenplays, everybody assumes that's the end. Here's another who's never going to write well again.
- Die
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- Nov 07, 2020