“Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong.”
Source: Obsidian Butterfly
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Laurell K. Hamilton 261
Novelist 1963Related quotes
“It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.”
Attributed as a statement to his Bible class (1 April 1905) in "The Loneliness of John D. Rockefeller", Current Literature (November 1906) vol. 41 no. 5,
“To assume someone because of their age or gender, that they don't pose a threat, would be wrong.”
' White House Tells Dissenters in State Department: 'Get With the Program' or Quit http://time.com/4653958/white-house-dissent-state-department-response/', Time, January 30 2017 (defending the detention of a five year old child)
The Philistine http://books.google.com/books?id=AoxHAAAAYAAJ&q="Philosophy+rests+on+a+proposition+that+whatever+is+is+right+preaching+begins+by+assuming+that+whatever+is+is+wrong"&pg=PA130#v=onepage (October 1897).
“It is surely better to be wronged than to do wrong.”
In Memory Yet Green (1979), p. 175
General sources
Soros on Soros (1995)
Context: The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis.... I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.
“It is better to suffer, than to do, wrong.”
The Sayings of the Wise (1555), p. 164
"The American: His New Puritanism," http://books.google.com/books?id=tn9HAAAAYAAJ&q=%22If+there+is+one+mental+vice+indeed+which+sets+off+the+American+people+from+all+other+folks+who+walk+the+earth%22+%22it+is+that+of%22+%22that+every+human+act+must+be+either+right+or+wrong+and+that+ninety-nine+percent+of+them+are+wrong%22&pg=RA1-PA87#v=onepage The Smart Set (February 1914)
1910s