Quotes About Probability

To talk of probability is to suggest that events might happen differently from the way they do, whereas events themselves will unfold according to an inevitable path.

The law of probability combined with the law of large numbers states that to beat the odds, sometimes you have to repeat an event an increasing number of times in order to get you to the outcome you desire. The more you do, the closer you get. Or… basically, sometimes you just have to keep going.

The law of probability combined with the law of large numbers states that to beat the odds, sometimes you have to repeat an event an increasing number of times in order to get you to the outcome you desire.

Yes, genes explain far more about us than anyone had realized, but the genes themselves often turn out to be sensitive to environmental conditions. And yes, each person has a characteristic level of happiness, but it now looks as though it's not so much a set point as a potential range or probability distribution.

Of course, we could do simulations with random number generators and make statistical predictions about long-term outcomes. But suppose that what looks to us like a random event is really controlled by forces outside our perceptible sphere?

Faith is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility.

22 bullet—very unlikely to kill

As of now, fifteen years into the twenty-first century, we know of so many conditions that are absolutely necessary for a planet to support life that not only is it extremely improbable that any other planets can support life, it's extremely improbable that our planet should support life.

Your chances of winning the Powerball lottery are far better than finding a hash collision. After all, lotteries often have actual winners. The probability of a hash collision is more like a lottery that has been running since prehistoric times and has never had a winner and will probably not have a winner for billions of years.

The mathematics of probability enters when we seek a method for enumerating possible cases without actually counting them off

The puzzle of time, the mystery of creation, the problem of evil, the enigma of knowledge, the state of soul, the vexations of probability theory of the nature of God's grace, all reduced to a single question. What does it mean, in a world of God's creation, that man is free to choose between the paths of good and evil?

One might as well attempt to calculate mathematically the contingent forms of the tinkling bits of glass in a kaleidoscope as to look through the tube of the future and foretell its pattern.

A)ny working hypothesis was probably going to involve quantum theory at some point—the part of physics that made my brains trickle out of my ears.

When my Princeton colleague Alan Blinder asked about my prospects of becoming Fed chairman, I downplayed the idea, saying the probability of that happening was "maybe 5 percent

But that outcome looked more and more unlikely.

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens

The psychologists Daniel Kahnerman and Amos Tversky have shown when humans estimate the likelihood or frequency of an event, we make that judgment based not on how often the event has actually occurred, but on how vivid the past examples are.

The odds against there being a bomb on a plane are a million to one, and against two bombs a million times a million to one. Next time you fly, cut the odds and take a bomb.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

Every fight, honest to say, in this division, at this level, is a toss-up. It's a 50-50 chance.

The hooks didn't roll out any more sevens than my hands did before them.

Just my luck, if I believed in luck. I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is.

It's like I say all the time, it's the heavyweight division. It doesn't matter if the guys a black belt or if he's a world-class boxer. We still have a 50-50 chance.