R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes

The hardest assumption to challenge is the one you don't even know you are making.

Assumptions are the things we don't know we're making.

Assumptions are what we don't know we are making

Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address their irrationalities.

The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Objective leaders identify their unproductive mental models and tweak them for greater effectiveness.

We all have mental models: the lens through which we see the world that drive our responses to everything we experience. Being aware of your mental models is key to being objective.

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

We do not see the lens through which we look.

Sometimes, people aren't as consciously aware of their decisions as they should be.

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.

Humans make errors. We make errors of fact and errors of judgment. We have blind spots in our field of vision and gaps in our stream of attention. Sometimes we can't even answer the simplest questions.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

We're all biased, right, in many different ways - politically, religiously, ideologically, the way our family raised us - and that's fine. Nobody wants to live in a world where everybody thinks exactly the same. The key, though, is to try to figure out where your biases are holding you back from solving problems.

I suppose we are what we are, and we use the evidence to confirm what we believe.

We were raised to believe that our way of seeing the world was the only way.

It's not the things you don't know that trip you up. It's the things you think you know, but you don't. You fail to ask a certain question because you believe you know the answer. Separating your information from your assumptions can be very tricky business.

Interrogate yours hidden assumptions

Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.

Do not engage to find things as you think they are.

Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.

Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.