“Never assume the obvious is true.”

Last update Dec. 19, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Never assume the obvious is true." by William Safire?
William Safire photo
William Safire 5
American journalist 1929–2009

Related quotes

Jean Baudrillard photo

“Nothing is wholly obvious without becoming enigmatic. Reality itself is too obvious to be true.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

1990s, The Perfect Crime (1993)

“Sometimes the obvious answer is the true answer.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Mortal Word (2018), Chapter 8 (p. 111)

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Michał Kalecki photo
Isaac Asimov photo
George Henry Lewes photo

“We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Physiology of Common Life (1859-60; repr. New York: D. Appleton, 1867) vol. 2, p. 349

“Never assume that any fact is useless until it is so proven.”

James Blish (1921–1975) American author

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 62)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“It must be obvious to anyone who can think at all that the charges against the Hussein regime are, as concerns arsenals of genocidal weaponry, true.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"We Must Fight Iraq" http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12227453&method=full&siteid=50143, Daily Mirror (2002-09-25): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2002, We Must Fight Iraq (2002)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Death never excites such sympathy as it does when it assumes the shape of murder.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)