Quotes About Certainty

Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it;

Despair is also often premature: it's a form of impatience as well as of certainty.

To me, the grounds for hope are simply that we don't know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly. And that the unofficial history of the world shows that dedicated individuals and popular movements can shape history and have, though how and when we might win and how long it takes is not predictable. Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it;

Eléa-enfants regardait le garçon, et le garçon la regardait. ils étaient heureux et beaux. Ils se reconnaissaient comme s'ils avaient marché toujours à la rencontre l'un de l'autre, sans hâte et sans impatience, avec la certitude de se rencontrer. Le moment de la rencontre était venu, ils étaient l'un avec l'autre et ils se regardaient. Ils se découvraient, ils étaient tranquilles et émerveillés.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

What is, is what must be.

You needn't worry about them, said his companion. They'll be alright - and thousands like them. If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean.

Believe you know all the answers, and you know all the answers. Believe you're a master, and you are.

Desde cuándo la seguridad ha sido tu ambición, Dickie? Huir de lo seguro: esa es la única manera de lograr que tu última palabra sea «¡Sí!»

Sizi en fazla ilgilendiren ve kayg?land?ran ?ey, yani hayatta olman?z, sahip oldu?unuz tek katiyettir.

Ne cennetler, ne cehennemler; tek var olan, doÄŸrusunu yapt???n?za inanana kadar yaratt???n?z bu sonsuz dünyalard?r.

as sure as death and as inescapable as taxes

We form opinions and then spend our entire lifetimes validating what we believe to be true.

The book is true, and if evidence seems to condtradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.

I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.

Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts it is invited to jump out a tenth-storey window.

The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on an even footing.

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.

when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal force, the truth does not necessarily lie midway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. And that justifies passion on the other side.

These beliefs contradict each other, so they can't be all right

Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book.

But there is also a deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting, which I shall call PAP (Permanent Agnosticism in Principle).

Fundamentalists know what they believe and they know that nothing will change their minds.

Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.