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21 " From a nonpatriarchal metaethical standpoint, however, Singer's and Regan's theoretical similarities are as significant as their differences. In particular, both Singer's utilitarian theory and Regan's rights approach are developed within a framework of patriarchal norms, which includes the subordinatin of emotion to reason, the privileging of abstract principles of conduct, the perception of ethical discussion as a battle between adversaries, and the presumption that ethics shoudl function as a means of social control. "
― Brian Luke
22 " Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence. "
23 " The essential war within, and the cause of suffering, begins with the presumption that yearning, impulse and curiosity, desire and question, exist so as to end them. To attain, to acquire, to answer. "
― Darrell Calkins , Re:
24 " The question under all this: How to get the idler to accept and engage the yearning? And that, my friends, is a deep and subtle question that will take a while to master, and the mastering of it will require redefining the presumption of what mastery even is. It is certainly not control. Mastery of anything is, more than anything else, the transformation of work into play. Giving orders and answers, never making mistakes, and having around you others with the opinion that you are great has nothing at all to do with it. Read carefully: to yearn for, to be compelled by, is being called to play. "
25 " All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond... flesh, the moment of being alive... then nothing. I had searched in superstition... But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so... tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me... I saw that those simple things might be true... I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle. You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence. "
― Sebastian Faulks , Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
26 " To lose what we never owned might seem an eccentric Bereavement but Presumption has its Affliction as actually as Claim -- "
― Emily Dickinson , Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
27 " Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence. "
― Rebecca Solnit
28 " Stay out of the court of self-judgment, for there is no presumption of innocence. "
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29 " He is a man-beast, carnivore incarnate, motivated by carnal avarice and wearing only the mask of civility. She could sip from that cup. It is his presumption that deters her: his belief that he has already caught Maud in his paw. "
30 " I go on the presumption that everyone's full of shit until proven otherwise, and this usually serves me in good stead. "
― Dennis Lehane , A Drink Before the War (Kenzie & Gennaro, #1)
31 " I know that language will be a crucial instrument, that I can overcome the stigma of my marginality, the weight of presumption against me, only if the reassuringly right sounds come out of my mouth. "
― Eva Hoffman , Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language
32 " The single greatest cultural contribution of postmodernity is that it eliminates the presumption of intellectual neutrality that modernity automatically associated with skeptical rationalism. (...) It shows, not that truth is socially constructed, but that the uniquely human act of bearing witness to the truth is always a moral as well as an intellectual or empirical or noetic act. "
― Paul C. Vitz , The Self: Beyond the Postmodern Crisis
33 " as long as agreat number of those impressions which form character, like the nicemotions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt tocalculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periodsof the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and moralweakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible. "
― Thomas Robert Malthus , An Essay on the Principle of Population
34 " The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts. "
― John Muir , A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
35 " What I find particularly hypocritical and dishonest is the suggestion that secularism is synonym for “doubt” and “tolerance”, as opposed to the certainty and intolerance of religion. Since the French Revolution, secularism, when translated into social or political action, has hardly been a synonym for tolerance and scepticism, but has been instead unfailingly characterised by a presumption to occupy the moral high ground which entitles to deal out moral judgments. This self-righteousness has often extended to a point that its proponents have not hesitated to execute those who dare to dissent from the new received orthodoxy, with an unwavering certainty that they are fulfilling the momentous mission of promoting social and moral progress. It is perhaps worth reminding that communism – an ideological monster responsible for, within just a few short decades, mass murders on a scale previously unprecedented in human history – is a political manifestation of the idea of a secular society. Marxist communist ideologies are intrinsically linked to the notion of a state sponsored, and enforced, secularism. 3 Communism has never struck me as particularly tolerant or imbued with scepticism. It is indeed a shame that the ruthless dictators of state atheism – such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot - before butchering tens of millions of people, did not doubt for an instant of doing the right thing. "
36 " There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. "
― Richard Dawkins , The God Delusion
37 " His attentive treatment of her had nothing to do with the presumption that she was weak, and everything to do with the conviction that she was valuable. "
― Angela N. Blount , Once Upon a Road Trip (Once Upon a Road Trip, #1)
38 " As a society, we adhere to the belief in a fair trial for a person accused of a serious crime, but some of us struggle when it comes to the business of providing a competent lawyer to guarantee said fair trial. Lawyers like me live with the question “But how do you represent such scum?”I offer a quick “Someone has to” as I walk away.Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis.It’s just as well that we don’t believe in fair trials because we damned sure don’t have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets. "
― John Grisham , Rogue Lawyer (Rogue Lawyer, #1)
39 " The basic principle of health, well-being, and the action of healing is the presumption of prior perfection rather than the motivating problem. We must be established in the presumption that Truth is always already the case, and therefore, the perfect form of any condition is already, priorly, and presently true of it. It is not that " I" am a problem or disease to be cured (or a hopeless sinner to be saved). Rather, " I" am already and priorly one with the Perfect Condition and the perfect Form of all conditions that presently pertain, and " I" am simply operating in order to manifest it (or allow it to manifest itself) in the play of experience. "
40 " Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the judgement, so also the conscience may be erroneous. "
― Thomas Hobbes , Leviathan