Quotes About Probability

If you flip a coin 1000 times, eventually it's going to roll away someplace where you can't get it.

But there was never any knowing or any certitude; the time to come always had more than one possible direction.

Are we not all creatures of chance?

Todo lo que sucede una vez puede que no suceda nunca más. Pero todo lo que sucede dos veces, sucederá, ciertamente, una tercera.»

Any argument where one supposes an arbitrary choice to be made an uncountably infinite number of times ...[is] outside the domain of mathematics.

Arguments derived from probabilities are idle.

With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.

Two strong futures lie ahead, each as possible as the other. It's rare for fate to boil down to two such evenly matched eventualities. Normally the paths of the future are many. When two exist like this, chance decides which the world will take.

In my experience, any trend that reaches the point where large organizations are inflicting it on their personnel has a high statistical probability of being stupid.

Rule #72: Never depend upon luck, but don't ignore how really valuable it is.

Might human sapience be a fluke? Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr said—"Nothing demonstrates the improbability of high intelligence better than the fifty billion earthly species that failed to achieve it.

Bob Rubin's book In an Uncertain World. Rubin had argued that many outcomes are possible in a given situation, and you have to anticipate and prepare for eventualities that seem unlikely but that could prove extremely damaging should they materialize

We live in a world of 'ifs.' 'What happened,' is singular; 'what might have happened,' legion.

People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose.

If 80 percent of life is showing up, the other 80 percent, as Yogi Berra might've said, is chance.

Cuántas veces se supone que deberías confiar? ¿En qué personas? ¿Cuántas, de cada cien, traen un puñal guardado? Cada vez que confías en alguien estás tirando dados. Puedes saber cuáles son tus probabilidades con los dados, pero no con la gente. Tiras no sabes cuántos dados, con sepa La Chingada cuántas caras.

Risk" isn't quite the right term; it's more like "dead certainty." Every year, anywhere from 65 to 80 percent of all runners suffer an injury. That's nearly every runner, every single year. No matter who you are, no matter how much you run, your odds of getting hurt are the same. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, fast or slow, pudgy or ripped as a racehorse, your feet are still in the danger zone.

On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

The goods are odd but the odds are good.

It seemed both proper and at the same time deeply unfair that so much of life was left to chance.

Lo que yo era antes no era bueno para mí. Pero de ese no-bueno yo había organizado lo mejor: la esperanza. De mi propio mal había creado un bien futuro. El miedo ahora ¿es que mi nuevo modo carezca de sentido? Pero ¿por qué no me dejo guiar por lo que vaya ocurriendo? Tendré que correr el sagrado riesgo del azar. Y sustituiré el destino por la probabilidad.

Do ya' feel lucky, punk?

We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.

My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel?