Quotes About Prediction

The cards act like an early warning system that lets us choose our future instead of reacting to it as it happens. This is the difference between stumbling around in the dark and turning on the lights. We may not like what we see, but at least we can see it. Now we can make intelligent choices instead of being at the mercy of the darkness.

What did Jesus tell his disciples? "Heaven is right here in the midst of you."6 In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood.

Gottmann—this was at the turn of the century— pointed to the young English girl who predicted the exact day World War I would begin—six years before it began. "In effect, then, [Edna Naylor] was a human banshee," Gottmann wrote, "warning the entire world of impending catastrophe. Alas, nobody paid her the least attention.

Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. [ca. 1906]

During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. 

Good historians...have the future in their bones

Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question: Why? the historian also asks the question: Whither?

Our fears have typically already decided that the worst is about to happen. Catastrophe is upon us and there is no hope. But "Don't be afraid," when spoken by the Lord, is a promise that the end will be different from what we predict.

Shame is very much on display in Jesus' crucifixion. When he predicted his own death to his disciples, he made sure to explain that it would be infused with mocking, a public flogging, and spitting (Mark 10:33–34). Witness this hatred and rejection and it will change you.

Can you see how worries multiply? Suddenly you are a gifted prophet

You can't tell till you bet.

Then take them there. They can still change their minds, can't they? But you make sure Rack understands that he owes us both a finder's fee, if they pass his tests." "They will," Mr. Quindar said. "Got a nose for these things, I 'ave. And these sisters ain't slipping through my fingers.

I don't want to be the one to break it to you, but the future ain't that funny.

I don't know the weapons that will be used in the Third World War, but in the Forth men will use wood and stones

One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.

I don't know [what weapons will be used in the Third World War]. But I can tell you what they'll use in the Fourth — rocks!

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

Si haces aquello, te destruirás; Si te entregas a tal actividad, terminarás como un pordiosero; Si tienes relaciones sexuales antes del matrimonio, te convertirás en una puta». Como el cerebro tiende a cumplir las predicciones, éstas, transformadas por el Inconsciente en órdenes, actúan sobre la vida del individuo como maldiciones que exigen ser realizadas.

Eso de estar siempre conjeturando cómo será el futuro es una deficiencia humana, y de esa deficiencia surgió el cine.

Il cuor mi dice che ci rivedremo presto. - Certo, il cuore, chi gli dà retta, ha sempre qualche cosa da dire su quello che sarà. Ma che sà il cuore? Appena un poco di quello che è già accaduto.

La storia è costretta a indovinare. Fortuna che c'è avvezza.

Lockdowns have failed as badly as the experts warned us they would, for precisely the reasons those experts spent their careers predicting. But the hysterics have learned nothing from the last four months.

Time alone will tell the future, but fate shall always have her way.

There are two kinds of people, I think: those who want to know the future and those who do not. I've never met anyone ambivalent about this. I have been both kinds. For now, I think I know which one is better, but I'm prepared to change my mind again. It may be I am like that drunk who tells himself he can handle his alcohol now. But if I told you I could tell the future, you would laugh at me. And I would laugh at me too.