Quotes About Prediction

Astrologers that future fates foreshow.

The worst is still ahead of us. But no one in Washington has the spine to tell you that.

I devised the Bert Lance Toe Test then - you go out on the front porch of the house, turn 'The Washington Post' over with your big toe, and if your name's above the fold, you know you're not going to have a good day.

I really loved Twin Peaks. When I saw the two-hour pilot, they screened it in the big theatre. I said, I don't know what is going to happen. I'm in this and I don't understand it. This is never going to sell. Who's going to watch this thing?

From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.

According to the U.N., more than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025. Many social scientists predict that the next big wars will be over water. Nevertheless, the average American family blissfully consumes 300 gallons a day, when you add in watering the lawn and washing dishes, clothes, and cars.

Nicolas Sarkozy said he could see a wave rising. For once he was right. The wave's coming; it's high, its strong, and it's going to smack him in the face.

People make basic assumptions based on what they have now. But you have to ask yourself, 'Is this really what people are going to be doing in five years?' Very few people ask themselves what they would actually want instead if they could wave a magic wand.

The fact that people can predict gravity wave sources that are within shouting distance makes me feel incredibly confident. Compared to monopoles, these sources are not just optimistic thinking.

What was done is measure directly, with exquisitely sensitive instruments, gravitational waves predicted about 100 years ago by Albert Einstein. These waves are a new way to study the universe and are expected to have significant impact on astronomy and astrophysics in the years ahead.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.

People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.

If we have an atom that is in an excited state and so is going to emit a photon, we cannot say when it will emit the photon. It has a certain amplitude to emit the photon at any time, and we can predict only a probability for emission; we cannot predict the future exactly.

While we cannot predict the future, we will most surely live it. Every action and decision we take - or don't - ripples into the future. For the first time, we have the capability, the technology, and the knowledge to direct those ripples.

Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas.

Prediction is a mug's game, but taking the side of water polluters has not been a winning political strategy for 50 years. Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all undertook to weaken water regulations in the name of economic growth. They left office; the regulations remained.

The planning fallacy is that you make a plan, which is usually a best-case scenario. Then you assume that the outcome will follow your plan, even when you should know better.

Certain guys, they can see a guy do a certain thing with their glove and know what pitch is coming. I couldn't do that. But I can get on first base and I can tell you by his move if that pitcher is going to first base or home plate every time.

I play football like chess. You have to think a lot and anticipate what could happen after you make your move.

I've been semi-successful. I've done all right but I'm not the player I was. Who do I think will win the world championship? John Higgins. Have I been good for snooker? I don't know.

Kara Braxton, she's a great player, so I think they can go far this year.

There are plenty of examples of really well-executed shows you could look at and say, 'Well, clearly this show will have an audience; why wouldn't it?' And for whatever reason, it just doesn't catch on. So you never know going in.

People used to pooh-pooh the idea of a check-in, saying that this wasn't interesting. But when you have 3 billion of those data points, you can take any latitude and longitude anywhere in the world, and I'll tell you what is interesting now, 20 minutes from now, and 6 hours from now.