Quotes About Certainty

There are movements of the soul, deeper than words can describe and yet more powerful than any reason, that can give a man to know beyond question or arguing or doubt that digitus Dei est hic (the finger of God is here),

This was the "good news" of salvation, meant to remove mankind's last doubts, last fears, about the nature of death. For the resurrection was a fact, a fact as certain and as sure as death itself, and it meant that death held no victory over men, that life beyond death is a certainty and not just a human hope or fable.

En realidad, no es cuestión de confiar o no en Dios, porque de hecho deseamos confiar en Él: es cuestión de nuestra fe última en su existencia y en su providencia, y exige el acto de fe más puro.

The evil god wants to force humanity into the path he's chosen.  But if I was certain of the best path—" and here he smiled,  "—I wouldn't force anyone.  That would be a waste of energy.  I'd merely try to make the thing inevitable.

Commonly, people think of philosophy as a quest, however ill advised, for truth. John Dewey called it the quest for certainty. But it is more illuminating to say that, at its best, philosophy is the quest for honesty.

Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.

The bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments went only as high as E Deck. If the first five compartments were flooded, the bow would sink so low that water in the fifth compartment must overflow into the sixth. When this was full, it would overflow into the seventh, and so on. It was a mathematical certainty, pure and simple. There was no way out.

Truth by definition is exclusive. If truth were all-inclusive, nothing would be false.

La mente de piedra no se permite dudar y aborrece la autocrítica. Sus fundamentos son inmodificables e indiscutibles.

Habrá algo más irracional que buscar la certeza absoluta? Si no dudaras nunca, estarías muy cerca del fundamentalismo ("La base de mis creencias es cierta por definición"), del dogmatismo ("Mi verdad es la única") y del oscurantismo ("El nuevo conocimiento es peligroso"). Vivirías en la zona más tenebrosa de la Edad Media mental. Recuerdo

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.

We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.

It is not the fear of losing God's favor that takes us to the depth of fellowship with him and transforms our lives with his holiness. It is our certainty of knowing his unrelenting love for us, even in the midst of our weakness and failure, that leads us to the fullness of his life.

It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.

The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it.

Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.

Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.

Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous—and it is also essential.

Subjective confidence in a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgment is correct.

Overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsigh

We focus on what we know and neglect what we do not know, which makes us overly confident in our beliefs.

risk-averse decision maker will choose a sure thing that is less than expected value, in effect paying a premium to avoid the uncertainty.

We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events. Overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsight.