Quotes About Certainty

He disliked demonstrating, he wanted to convince no one.

When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.

The Captain was a peasant established in the Absolute.

To know, in vulgar terms, is to get over something: to know, in absolute terms, is to get over everything. Illumination represents one further step: the certainty that henceforth we will never again be taken in, a last glance at illusion.

We never follow the consistent rationalist for long; once we pluck out his mystery and know where he is headed, we abandon him to his system

"Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion."

Cautious men have many adverbs, "usually," "nearly," "almost ": safe men begin, " it may be advanced " : you never know precisely what their premises are, nor what their conclusion is; they go tremulously like a timid rider; they turn hither and thither; they do not go straight across a subject, like a masterly mind.

Human beings are infinitely fallible, completely unreliable. Science is not. Science is absolute. Under strict principles, if you do A and B, then C will occur. This rarely happens if you inject the inefficiences of humanity into the process.

I like to verify things independently. It's not like any of us are infallible.

Assumptions are dangerous things. I like facts a lot better.

The well-known paradox of the theory of probabilities is that, to all seeming, it can extract knowledge from ignorance and certainty from doubt.

Few persons are prevented from thinking themselves right by the reflection that, if they be right, the rest of the world is wrong.

Appearances proved nothing and everything.

Pero mi vida existe, con toda certeza. Deformada, exhausta, débil, llena de complejos de culpa, pero existe. Y esto es algo maravilloso que, en cualquier momento, sobrepasa mis emociones

Que los muertos no volvían. Que una cosa era sólo una cosa

Faith that denies fact is fanaticism

I had arrived at an understanding of faith that had far more to do with trust than with certainty. I trusted God to be God even if I could not say who God was for sure. I trusted God to sustain the world although I could not say for sure how that happened. I trusted God to hold me and those I loved, in life and in death, without giving me one shred of conclusive evidence that it was so.

Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right, and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails. Wise people do not have to be certain what they believe before they act. They are free to act, trusting that the practice itself will teach them what they need to know.

When in doubt, act.

Once the divinity of doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith.

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little.

No one is is sure of his premise as the man who knows too little.

But once divinity of doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith.