The Congressional Budget Office has been embarrassed repeatedly by making projections based on the assumption that tax revenues and tax rates move in the same direction.

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

I think the depth, what children can handle and what they’re interested in, is much deeper than I think what people assume. I think it’s why sometimes we make things too simple for them.

With colleagues in the work environment, we fail to see the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulations; our attempts at influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as ourselves.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

People take the little bit of information they’re fed, and they draw a picture of who you are. Most of the time, it’s wrong.

The knighthood was a tremendous honour, I don’t dismiss it. But I feel embarrassed by the flowery, theatrical stuff that goes with being an actor.

I lost some of my friends because I got so famous, people who just assumed that I would be different now. I felt like everyone hated me. That is the most unhappy time of my life.

Looking back on the production of ‚Nevermind,‘ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

Sadly, I do my homework. I’ve a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I’ll read C. Fred Bergsten’s defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It’s embarrassing to admit.

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.

Before I look stupid and not know what a word means or how to pronounce it, I’ll stop the whole production: ‚Hey, real quick, guys. Define this word for me. Somebody.‘

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.