Presumptuous Quotes

You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least - at a minimum - I've been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I've been relatively - presumptuous to say - relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle. ~ Joe Biden

And it is true that we are warmed by being called by our names. We all know people who hardly ever do it, who only do it when they absolutely must. They manage to steer conversations along, ask questions, respond, without ever using a first name. And they chill others with their apparent detachment, those others who can never understand that it is diffidence which keeps them from committing themselves to the use of names. They might get the names wrong, or use them too often, be claiming an intimacy to which they have no right, be forward, pushy, presumptuous. ~ Ruth Rendell

I always feel kind of absurd and presumptuous presenting a speech. ~ Moby

Inequality is the deepest of problems, built into the structure of reality itself, and will not be solved by the presumptuous, ideology-inspiring retooling of the rare free, stable and productive democracies of the world. ~ Jordan B. Peterson

I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

I think [religion] is presumptuous and I think it is silly, because it makes you believe that you are less than what you can be. As long as you can blame everything on some unseen deity, you don't ever have to be responsible for your own behavior. ~ Harlan Ellison

To look at a work of art and then to make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

In the strangeness of the brightening day it seemed presumptuous that with this feeble, broken instrument of his mind he had ever tried to think. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Checking email every 45 seconds is not only compulsive, it's presumptuous. It suggests a belief that anyone who sends us a message needs us to read it immediately, even if the message is from SkyMall telling us our Bigfoot Garden Yeti statue has shipped. ~ Meghan Daum

Orpheus chose to be the leader of mankind. Ah, not even Orpheus had attained such a goal, not even his immortal greatness had justified such vain and presumptuous dreams of grandeur, such flagrant overestimation of poetry! Certainly many instances of earthly beauty--a song, the twilit sea, the tone of the lyre, the voice of a boy, a verse, a statue, a column, a garden, a single flower--all possess the divine faculty of making man hearken unto the innermost and outermost boundaries of his existence, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that the lofty art of Orpheus was esteemed to have the power of diverting the streams from their beds and changing their courses, of luring the wild beasts of the forest with tender dominance, of arresting the cattle a-browse upon the meadows and moving them to listen, caught in the dream and enchanted, the dreamwish of all art: the world compelled to listen, ready to receive the song and its salvation. However, even had Orpheus achieved his aim, the help lasts no longer than the song, nor does the listening, and on no account might the song resound too long, otherwise the streams would return to their old courses, the wild beasts of the forest would again fall upon and slay the innocent beasts of the field, and man would revert again to his old, habitual cruelty; for not only did no intoxication last long, and this was likewise true of beauty's spell, but furthermore, the mildness to which men and beasts had yielded was only half of the in ~ Hermann Broch

Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. ~ Frances Wright

A photograph is just a tiny slice of a subject. A piece of them in a moment. It seems presumptuous to think you can get more than that. ~ Annie Leibovitz

Classification may very well not be useless, but it is never analysis, no matter how baroquely detailed and comprehensive-seeming its categories. At best, it begs questions. At worst it is presumptuous and totalitarian, replacing understanding with filing. We have all heard papers where categories are the driving force, according to which the way we understand literature (or whatever) is to work out what title fits where, as if literary theory was a giant card-catalog. Even when the last book has been slotted neatly into the last of the holes that were cut to be filled with books, what we have are books in neat piles. Which is not nothing, but neither is it that much. ~ China Mieville

Let the water flow beneath the bridge; let men be men, that is to say, weak, vain, inconstant, unjust, false, and presumptuous; let the world be the world still; you cannot prevent it. Let every one follow his own inclination and habits; you cannot recast them, and the best course is, to let them be as they are and bear with them. Do not think it strange when you witness unreasonableness and injustice; rest in peace in the bosom of God; He sees it all more clearly than you do, and yet permits it. Be content to do quietly and gently what it becomes you to do, and let everything else be to you as though it were not. ~ Francois Fenelon

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Who am I to stop everybody just to tell my stupid story? It's presumptuous. ~ Brendan Benson

Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as "reviewing", which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition modern scholarship. a Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (sharh) as the occasion demands. there is no such thing as "reviewing" it, whether the "review" is termed as such or as any other term which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye to them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary - they polish a positive work and make it shine. ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

It is almost as presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything. ~ Phillips Brooks

I think it's become such a part of younger people's daily life to have the instant access to each other that it sometimes gets a little presumptuous. People feel like it's OK, for example, to email you with some weird personal criticism they have. ~ Ted Leo

It is not a question of living dangerously. That formula is too arrogant, too presumptuous. I don't care much for bull-fighters. It's not the danger I love. I know what I love. It is life itself. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths ~ Orson Scott Card

When the blessed Spirit, that bloweth where it listeth, visits you and stirs the plumage of the soul, seek no cowardly shelter from it, but fling yourself upon it, and, though its sweep be awful, you shall be sustained. Only do this, do all, not in presumptuous daring, but in divine submission; in dependence, not on any strength that can be spent, but on the ever-living stay of all that trust in Him. ~ James Martineau

Photography is very presumptuous. Photographers are always photographing other people's lives - something they know nothing about - and drawing great inferences into it. ~ Duane Michals

I'm not presumptuous enough to feel that people are going to feel what I have in mind, so I tell a story, you know, let them read something, that doesn't change, that as I have said it, you know, so that's the way I feel about the viewer, the viewer has a mind of their own and eyes of their own and they're going to see it their way, I just hope they look. ~ Faith Ringgold

It was presumptuous for one man to forgive another. That was the duty of God. For men to pretend such mercy was an idle pride and a lack of respect. He did not desire any such mercy for himself. ~ Mario Puzo

Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man. ~ Pliny The Elder

It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of people, it's very presumptuous. ~ Vidal Sassoon

Take care. -If you do not speak- I shall claim you as my own in some presumptuous way. -Send me away at once, if I must go; -Margaret!- ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

No people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery, but when they deserv'd it ... The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought ... If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy. ~ Samuel Adams

In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

I'm really not any good at this whole dating thing, and I don't even know if this is a date, but I know that whatever it is, it's a little more than just two friends hanging out, and knowing that makes me think about later tonight when it's time for you to leave and whether or not you plan to kiss me and I'm the type of person who hates surprises so I can't stop feeling awkward about it because I do want you to kiss me and this may be presumptuous of me, but I sort of think you want to kiss me, too, and so I was thinking how much easier it would be if we just went ahead and kissed already so you can go back to cooking dinner and I can stop trying to mentally map out how our night's about to play out. ~ Colleen Hoover

Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers. ~ Terry Pratchett

I did not want to quarrel with her, although I thought her both presumptuous and rude. ~ George MacDonald

The church always has need for prayer. There are always some in her midst who are declining, or falling into open sin. There are lambs to be prayed for, that they may be carried in Christ's bosom: the strong, lest they grow presumptuous; and the weak, lest they become despairing. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It is presumptuous to draw conclusions about a person from what one has heard ~ Jude Morgan

Plato said: 'He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration in the belief that craftmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.' ~ Chuck Palahniuk

About hope, I am somewhat at a loss. It is so easy to say I hope to - the tongue slides over it. I think perhaps hope can only be realized by contrasting it with despair. And I am too lazy to despair. Please don't visit me with it, dear Lord, I would be so miserable. Hope, however, must be something distinct from faith. I unconsciously put it in the faith department. It must be something positive that I have never felt. It must be a positive force, else why the distinction between it and faith? I would like to order things so that I can feel all of a piece spiritually. I don't suppose I order things. But all my requests seem to melt down to one for grace - that supernatural grace that does whatever it does. My mind is in a little box, dear God, down inside other boxes and on and on. There is very little air in my box. Dear God, please give me as much air as it is not presumptuous to ask for. Please let some light shine out of all the things around me so that I can what it amounts to I suppose is be selfish. Is there no getting around that dear God? No escape from ourselves? ~ Flannery O'Connor

Forgive me, madam," he said lightly, amused, "but waiting to make love to you again is straining my nerves."
She scoffed but she was quite shaken; he could see it in her expression, in the way she nervously toyed with the buttons on her pelisse.
"How awfully presumptuous of you to think I'd let you."
"You will," he insisted soothingly.
She gaped at him.
"Please continue," he urged. "I'm aching to hear the rest."
"You're as arrogant as usual."
"You missed it, though."
"I absolutely did not," she asserted.
He grinned. "You missed my arrogance almost as much as I missed your impudence, little one."
"That's absurd."
"I love you, Caroline," he softly, quickly replied, catching her off guard with such tenderness. "Move on before I decide I'm finished with this conversation, rip off your clothes, and show you how much. ~ Adele Ashworth

The sheep vs. goats analogy is presumptuous. I define the world in general to be the people who populate it without assignment of an either/or category in presumption of their final and ultimate choice as to Who and Whose Jesus is".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

Envy shrugged. 'Can no value be found in good intentions?'
'What, precisely, are you trying to justify? And to me, or yourself?'
She glared, then quickened her pace. 'You're no fun at all,' she sniffed as she pulled
ahead, 'and presumptuous as well. I'm going to talk with Tool, his moods don't
swing!'
No, they just hang there, twisting in the wind. ~ Steven Erikson

I was honored and pleased that she was confiding in me in this fashion. I met her eyes, and for the first time I perceived that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a diamond that becomes visible only when viewed through a magnifying lens; normally it is hidden by the brilliance of the stone. I wanted to know what it was, what had caused her to create the pearl of which she had spoken. But I thought it would be presumptuous of me to ask; such things are revealed by a person when and to whom they choose. So I attempted to convey through my expression alone my desire to understand her and said nothing further. ~ Mohsin Hamid

I think it's a little presumptuous on his part to think that I would want to talk to him anyway. I mean, sure, I went home with him, probably slept with him, ate breakfast with him, and wore his clothes to work the next day. None of this I see as necessarily flirtatious on my part. ~ Josh Kilmer-Purcell

You're presumptuous and arrogant and a whole lot of other things if you think I've changed my mind."
"You see, that's just it." There he was again, moving into my space. "I think you like the 'other things. ~ Richelle Mead

The idea we came up with, well before we left, was something we coined Performance Literature. Excuse the use of that second word, because I realize it's presumptuous. Also, excuse the first word, and the term in general. ~ Dave Eggers

A similar attitude causes some people to spurn the use of commentaries and similar resources in their Bible study, as if their own uninformed first impression is just as good as careful study using reference tools. It is becoming more and more common all the time to hear people say, 'I don't read commentaries and books about the Bible. I limit my study to the Bible itself.' That may sound very pious, but is it? Isn't it actually presumptuous? Are the written legacies of godly men of no value to us? Can someone who ignores study aids understand the Bible just as well as someone who is familiar with the scholarship of other godly teachers and pastors? ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

In a lovely book called On Hope, Josef Pieper explores Thomas Aquinas' theology of hope along these lines: the hopeful person is by definition a wayfarer (viator), because the virtue of hope lies midway between the two vices of despair (desperatio) and presumption (praesumptio). What despairing persons and presumptuous persons have in common is that they aren't going anywhere, they are fixed in place: the despairing because they don't think there's anywhere to go, the presumptuous because they think they have reached the pinnacle of achievement. ~ Alan Jacobs

Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove? ~ Alexander Pope

It would be idle, and presumptuous, to wish to imitate the achievements of a Morphy or an Alekhine; but their methods and their manner of expressing themselves are within the reach of all. ~ Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

Most people who work with me can tell you I'm a bit of a pessimist about business stuff. Not because I don't believe in what I'm doing, I just don't like feeling presumptuous. Like, 'This is what's going to happen!' Honestly, I don't know what will happen. ~ Ben Rector

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The idea of a finished human product not only appears presumptuous but even, in my opinion, lacks any strong appeal. Life is struggle and striving, development and growth - and analysis is one of the means that can help in this process. Certainly its positive accomplishments are important, but also the striving itself is of intrinsic value. ~ Karen Horney

It is presumptuous ridicule of God if someone thinks that only the person who desires great wealth chooses mammon. Alas, the person who insists on having a penny without God, wants to have a penny all for himself. He thereby chooses mammon. A penny is enough, the choice is made, he has chosen mammon; that it is little makes not the slightest difference. The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

From time to time, I hear people speculate on the question, "When does the prophet speak as a prophet, and when does he speak otherwise?" This query seems curious to me, as if one were presumptuous enough to sit in judgment on a prophet. In my close associations with President Kimball, spanning two decades and the spectrum from suffering to sublimity, I have never asked that question. The only question I have asked has been, "How can I be more like him? ~ Russell M. Nelson

That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Surely, then, mere style, or language, never was, as it never could, naturally, it never could, possibly be praised, by well-informed readers; by them, the poet's manner of expressing his ideas is admired, only as the vigorous, and splendid nature of those ideas give it a dignity, and lustre. A style deserves no commendation which is not impregnated with the spirit of genius; if it is not actuated, and burnished with that spirit, it must always be feeble, and lifeless, like its weak, and presumptuous authour. Infinitely various are the powers, and display of the human mind: sometimes a nervous, nay, a great writer, in his ardent intellectual progress, will be negligent of the style, or manner in which he expresses his thoughts; but still, aided by that ardour, even his negligent strokes will hit you; even in his roughness you will feel an interest. This is another proof, if another proof was wanting, that it is thought which gives a commanding character, and authority to style; and that style will attract, and fix, and gratify our attention; even when it is thrown out by a careless vigour. ~ Percival Stockdale

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves. ~ Luc De Clapiers

When the farmer arises in the morning unreconciled to get out of bed, he feels no anxiety that he has wasted time through his sleep; au contraire, he is confident that the seed has continued to grow during the night. So, too, the spiritual woman does not fret and flap over opportunities missed, does not hammer herself for not working hard enough, and does not have a panic attack wondering whether she has received grace in vain. She lives in quiet confidence that God is working in her by day and by night. Like the farmer, she is not totally passive or presumptuous. The woman knows that she has her full measure of work to do, but she realizes that the outcome rests with God and that the decisive factor is unearned grace. Thus, she works as if everything depends on God and prays as if everything depends on her. ~ Brennan Manning

It feels presumptuous to think of writing for adults. ~ Gail Carson Levine

It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word. ~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous. ~ Edward Reynolds

Above all sins, guard against bold or arrogant ones. You are not beyond the danger of such. If caught in the web of presumptuous sin, call quickly to God for help. If you hesitate, you only give Satan time to entangle you more tightly. But if you cry out to God in true repentance, He will come at once to rescue you. The sooner you yield to the Spirit, the less damage is done to your soul. ~ William Gurnall

And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious. ~ David Hume

In the course of my intellectual life I experienced very acutely the problem of whether it isn't actually presumptuous to say that we can know the truth - in the face of all our limitations. I also asked myself to what extent it might not be better to suppress this category. In pursuing this question, however, I was able to observe and also to grasp that relinquishing truth doesn't solve anything but, on the contrary, leads to the tyranny of caprice. In that case, the only thing that can remain is really what we decide on and can replace at will. Man is degraded if he can't know truth, if everything, in the final analysis, is just the product of an individual or collective decision.

In this way it became clear to me how important it is that we don't lose the concept of truth, in spite of the menaces and perils that it doubtless carries with it. It has to remain as a central category. As a demand on us that doesn't give us rights but requires, on the contrary, our humility and our obedience and can lead us to the common path. ~ Benedict XVI

Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises. ~ Luc De Clapiers

The overnight bag was a little presumptuous. I mean, I was pretty sure that we'd be having sex, and I'm sure he was, too. But staying over.
Well, that was a little intimate, wasn't it? ~ Marshall Thornton

Witches have animals they can talk to, called familiars. Like your toad there."

"I'm not familiar," said a voice from among the paper flowers. "I'm just slightly presumptuous. ~ Terry Pratchett

Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence ... The difference ... is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. ~ Demosthenes

Stable husbanding of the land requires community-wide language and norms for resolving interpersonal conflict, facilitating barter and trade, determining shares of work and output and maintaining organizational hierarchies. Although such social functions are the requisites of community life everywhere, the ways of performing them evolve differently from place to place. Each society develops its practices and sets of myths, symbols and rational justifications, which usually are held to be superior to those of other societies.
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And just as material reasons for self-sufficiency can turn communities towards economic imperialism, so the ideational justifications for autonomy can turn them into presumptuous civilizers of other peoples. ~ Seyom Brown

Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight. ~ Jessica Savitch

I don't mean to be presumptuous that men don't feel this, I don't mean this, but I found that when my child was born, my first child, it felt like my heart broke. ~ Tea Leoni

The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe. ~ G.K. Chesterton

As much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one. ~ Yann Martel

After the third [San Miguel], I am likely to announce that all writing is fantasy anyway: that to set any event down in print is immediately to begin to lie about it, thank goodness; and that it's no less absurd and presumptuous to try on the skin of a bank teller than that of a Bigfoot or a dragon. ~ Peter S. Beagle

But arguendo, as the lawyers say - just for the sake of argument - let's say my employees have been applying pressure on your brother's wife. Why would they do that if we'd taken Roger prisoner? Where's the sense in that?" "Because he left something behind, and you want it." "Now you're starting to make sense. You're half-right." "Am I?" "Absolutely. He does have something we want. That's absolutely true. But I doubt he left it behind. That doesn't fit with my understanding of your brother's character. Though maybe that's presumptuous. You know him far better than we do. Am I wrong to assume that he takes after your father? ~ Joseph Finder

Beware of presumptuous people who believe they know a lot. They may commit as much damage as ignorant people. ~ Eraldo Banovac

I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous. ~ Douglas Adams

There is, I believe, a kind of telepathy between the condemned: a sort of intuitive recognition which can even make itself felt through the medium of the printed page. How else should I feel - without fear of appearing presumptuous, either - for this great man whom I never saw and to whom I could not have spoken, the tender, wincing, pathetic solicitude that painfully comes into being only between fellow-sufferers? ~ Anna Kavan

You're right to say "hold on to" instead of "keep." To keep is presumptuous. To hold means you realize that today it's yours and tomorrow who knows. ~ Erri De Luca

If you would but consider your own unattractive exterior, your unamiable reserve, your foolish diffidence, which must make you appear cold, dull, awkward, and perhaps ill-tempered too; ... if you had but rightly considered these from the beginning, you would never have harboured such presumptuous thoughts; and now that you have been so foolish, pray repent and amend, and let us have no more of it! ~ Anne Bronte

Never for a moment have I had one doubt about my religious beliefs. There are people who believe only so far as they can understand
that seems to me presumptuous and sets their understanding as the standard of the universe. ~ Woodrow Wilson

For the most part, we should pray rather in aspiration than petition, rather by hoping than requesting; in which spirit also we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it. ~ Leigh Hunt

You two start on home, Daisy,' said Tom. 'In Mr Gatsby's car.'
She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn.
'Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realises that his presumptuous little flirtation is over. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I had never been so close to death before.
For a long time, as I lay there trying to clear my mind, I couldn't think coherently at all, conscious only of a terrible, blind bitterness. Why had they singled me out? Didn't they understand? Had everything I'd gone through on their behalf been utterly in vain? Did it really count for nothing? What had happened to logic, meaning and sense?
But I feel much calmer now. It helps to discipline oneself like this, writing it down to see it set out on paper, to try and weigh it and find some significance in it.
Prof Bruwer: There are only two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing.
I wanted to help. Right. I meant it very sincerely. But I wanted to do it on my terms. And I am white, and they are black. I thought it was still possible to reach beyond our whiteness and blackness. I thought that to reach out and touch hands across the gulf would be sufficient in itself. But I grasped so little, really: as if good intentions from my side could solve it all. It was presumptuous of me. In an ordinary world, in a natural one, I might have succeeded. But not in this deranged, divided age. I can do all I can for Gordon or scores of others who have come to me; I can imagine myself in their shoes, I can project myself into their suffering. But I cannot, ever, live their lives for them. So what else could come of it but failure?< ~ Andre Brink

I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine? ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Remember that though humility, without firmness, may be cowardly, yet courage without humility is presumptuous. ~ Marie Angelique Arnauld

I have been
Presumptuous against love, against the sky,
Against all elements, against the tie
Of mortals each to each, against the blooms
Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs
Of heroes gone. ~ John Keats

What has been said of the Roman empire, is at least as true of the British constitution - "This mighty structure has come together thanks to eight hundred years of good fortune and discipline, which cannot be uprooted without destroying the uprooters." This British constitution has not been struck out at an heat by a set of presumptuous men, like the assembly of pettifoggers run mad in Paris.
'Tis not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.
It is the result of the thoughts of many minds, in many ages. It is no simple, no superficial thing, nor to be estimated by superficial understandings. An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. The British constitution may have its advantages pointed out to wise and reflecting minds; but it is of too high an order of excellence to be adapted to those which are common. It takes in too many views, it makes too many combinations, to be so much as comprehended by shallow and superficial under ~ Edmund Burke

There's one advantage in having been around as long as I have. Everybody in the Senate knows me, and - I'm going to say something presumptuous, to repeat myself - I think most respect me. ~ Joe Biden

Let's face it: pop music in its myriad permutations will always be sexually presumptuous, racially controversial and, frequently, politically charged. ~ Dan Hill

You're very presumptuous, you know," she said, but she smiled. He smiled right back. Confident. "You're very beautiful, you know." She ~ Robyn Carr

For many people, I was a phase, a part of the period of growing up. People ask me why I connected. It was presumptuous of me to say, but I'm Everyman. The difference is I put my thoughts into words. ~ Rod McKuen

The portrait painter ... If he insults his sitters his occupation is gone. Whether he paints the should instead of the features, or the latter with all its natural blemishes, he is as presumptuous as if he shouted, 'What a face. Hide it.' which would never do, although it is analogous to what landscape painters are doing every day. ~ Walter J. Phillips

If we permit our imagination to traverse the obscure regions of possibility, we may doubtless imagine, according to the complexion of our minds, that disorder may have a relative tendency to unmingled good, or order be relatively replete with exquisite and subtile evil. To neither of these conclusions, which are equally presumptuous and unfounded, will it become the philosopher to assent. Order and disorder are expressions denoting our perceptions of what is injurious or beneficial to ourselves, or to the beings in whose welfare we are compelled to sympathize by the similarity of their conformation to our own. ~ Christopher Hitchens

For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to personalities, which are not always forgiven after he has repented and become ashamed of them. ~ Robert Southey

MacKenzie surveyed the nearly finished quilt. "What's the name of this pattern, Mrs. King?" he asked.
"Princess Feather," Jesse answered.
Taking LisBeth's hand in his own, MacKenzie asked, "Would it be presumptuous of me to ask if you had planned to add this quilt to LisBeth's hope chest?"
Jesse looked up at the couple and grinned. "I could be persuaded to do that. But only if I was assured that her future husband was a man worthy of sharing such a gift. ~ Stephanie Grace Whitson

Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will. ~ Flannery O'Connor

As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer [is] but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust His promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking. ~ Thomas Lye

If there is nothing, then, but silence, is it not presumptuous of me to speak? And yet, if there had been anything more than silence, would I have felt the need to speak in the first place? ~ Paul Auster

Human beings betray their worst failings when they marvel to find that a world ruler is neither foolishly indolent, presumptuous, nor cruel. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar