Quotes About Probability

There's a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make.

I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But I want to be fooled by randomness in art. I want the ceremonial of religion; we are made for it.

High flops like K-Q-9, K-J-10 or Q-J-8 are dangerous to pocket aces. That's because these flops will more likely to connect with the range of hands that your opponents will typically play, like 10-J, K-Q, 10-10, or 9-10.

I think there's a difference between a gamble and a calculated risk.

At the end of the day, life is a gamble, isn't it? A lot of it is sheer luck.

Sometimes a 3-1 favorite loses. That's why they call it gambling, and that's why they keep flipping over the cards.

It's always pretty cool to hit a card on the river, especially when you're lucky enough to do it two days in a row. But good fortune doesn't last forever.

wherever the strength of a faith steps decisively into the foreground, we infer a certain weakness in its ability to demonstrate its truth, even the improbability of what it believes. We, too, do not deny that the belief "makes blessed," but for that very reason we deny that the belief proves something—a strong belief which confers blessedness creates doubts about what it has faith in. It does not ground "truth." It grounds a certain probability— delusion.

Suppose you applied this principle outside bridge? Suppose that coincidence and other chance happenings weren't really as chancy as they looked? Suppose there were individuals with a special aptitude for calling the turns, making the breaks? But that was a pretty obvious idea—nothing to give a person the shiver it had given him.

The probability of finding a particular book increases in relation to the clarity of the store's focus, the diligence and shrewdness of the bookseller, and the size of the business.

Faro is a game of chance, essentially, with no skill involved. You bet against the bank, and the bank almost always wins.

Most estimates of the mortality risk posed by asteroid impacts put it at about the same risk as flying in a commercial airliner. However, you have to remember that this is like the entire human race riding the plane - it is one of the few risks that really could wipe us all out.

The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci.

You're more likely to see someone fatally struck by lightning than witness a case of in-person voter fraud.

Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance.

The beauty of any conspiracy theory is that because it can't be proved, that just makes it more 'real.' It's not a question of believing or not believing, really; it's more a question of just accepting a series of probabilities that lead to an undeniable conclusion.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

Maybe we should teach schoolchildren probability theory and investment risk management.

There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn't true.

The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.

One important measurement issue concerns the fat tails problem that I mentioned earlier. VAR is concerned with extreme outcomes. If the tails of the probability distributions we are using are too thin, our VAR measures are likely to be too low.

Thirty guys equals five percent die-off among active wingsuit base jumpers. That means there's a flaw in our system and you're an idiot if you think anything else. I'm smart enough to know that five percent means it could be me.

The point is, there is no point." Philip spoke up surprisingly. "No one here gets out alive. And over a sufficient period of time, all choices tend to normalize on a curve of random distribution." "You mean if you wait long enough, nothing happens?