Quotes About Certainty

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. —André Gide

given sufficient ignorance, one can doubt evolution....

Instead of feeling any need to persuade, people who are certain they are correct can impose their beliefs by force. In theocracies and autocracies, authorities censor, imprison, exile or burn those with the wrong opinions. In democracies the force is less brutish, but people still find means to impose a belief rather than argue for it.

Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure. —George Carlin

Dile a la gente que hay un hombre invisible en el cielo que creó el universo y la inmensa mayoría te creerá. Dile que la pintura está húmeda y tendrá que tocar para asegurarse.

New information reduces our ignorance and changes the probability. If that sounds mystical or paradoxical, think about the probability that a coin I just flipped landed heads. For you, it's .5. For me, it's 1 (I peeked). Same event, different knowledge, different probability.

Probabilites are not about the world; they're about our ignorance of the world.

Are you infallible? Are you certain that you're right about everything? If so, what makes you different from your opponents, who also are certain they're right?

We all love guarantees in life.

Why is it better to love than be loved? It is surer.

Perhaps many of us do not like it where we are in the universe now, but we can all be certain that we got where we are -our own decisions to expand in love or withdraw from it.

You doubt because you love truth.

Show me your sun. The rhythm of your eyes. Love is not as certain as this hypnotic time.

God is love, but get it in writing.

You say you're sure? Sure that you're in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?

This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love.

Love is many things. It is varied. One thing love is not, is unsure.

Never talk yourself out of knowing you're in love or into thinking that you are.

But I hadn't known what love was. And I wondered how you could ever be sure, when you thought you loved someone, if you really did.

With that strange knowing that comes over me, like a clairvoyance, I know that I am sure of myself and my enormous and alarmingly timeless love for you; which will always be.

Great love leaves little doubt.

If you know that God loves you, you should never question a directive from Him.

We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.

If you have a comprehensive explanation for everything then it decreases uncertainty and anxiety and reduces your cognitive load. And if you can use that simplifying algorithm to put yourself on the side of moral virtue then you're constantly a good person with a minimum of effort.