The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
Because everybody always encouraged me to sing, I assumed that I wasn't bad at it. It felt like it was obvious what I was going to pursue. I thought I was good for as long as I can remember.
The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.
More recently, as faith gave way to materialism, anti-Semitism assumed a secular mode, harnessing itself to the dominant ideologies of both the Left and the Right.
Protestantism came to America to make America Protestant. It was assumed that was to be done through faith in the reasonableness of the common man and the establishment of a democratic republic.
We don't see very far in the future, we are very focused on one idea at a time, one problem at a time, and all these are incompatible with rationality as economic theory assumes it.
I'm not funny. People assume that because my books are funny, I'll be funny in real life. It's the inevitable disappointment of meeting me.
I think cheese smells funny, but I feel bananas 'are' funny. I'm assuming Swamp told the whole story of the executives seriously asking us to replace the banana with cheese because they thought it was funnier.
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
When I was doing all this acting stuff, all these kids, like, assumed, 'Oh, my God, you're on TV, and you probably have a lot of money.' And I was living in a garage.
I am very orthodox in thinking that Jesus acted in his life the way God would have acted if God had assumed human form.
Religious speech is extreme, emotional, and motivational. It is anti-literal, relying on metaphor, allusion, and other rhetorical devices, and it assumes knowledge within a community of believers.
But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life.
I wish you could see some of the girls I have genuinely had crushes on in my life. They're not the girls you would assume.
For the duration of its collective life, or the time during which its identity may be assumed, each class resembles a hotel or an omnibus, always full, but always of different people.
From the time I was very young, I was a professional, making money and assuming responsibilities. I didn't live the life of a child. I was living the life of a 30-year-old.
I think when people see photos of you out and about in your personal life, they assume that you've asked for it or that you want that attention, but I don't think anyone in their right mind asks for that kind of thing.
I don't feel like I need to share my personal life, and I don't care if people think I'm gay or not. Assume whatever you want. You do it anyway.
You would think that when someone accepts a position with a company, they would assume that their life will be better off because they have that job rather than a different one.
There are moments when even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of Hell.
It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.
