Quotes About Probability

Our squadron commander said, 'You've got to shoot down four enemy planes before you're shot down yourself because that's what the odds are. Otherwise you're wasting your time.

No year is without one Friday the 13th, and no year has more than three.

6 of 14 years have one Friday the 13th. 6 of 14 years have two Friday the 13th. 2 of 14 years have three Friday the 13th.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

Intuition is nothing more than the most likely junction of the thing called will and the thing called chance.

Those were certainly better odds

Those were certainly better odds than Candace had ever had before.

One of the things I always tell the police and families is that while everything is possible, not all things are probable. You can't waste a lot of investigative effort on an extremely unlikely scenario; you have to stay with what makes sense.

Some of my Arcanum bunkmates taught me a card game called dogs-breath. I returned the favor by giving an impromptu lesson in psychology, probability, and manual dexterity. I won almost two whole talents before they stopped inviting me back to their games.

Does six strike you as a good number?" I didn't know what he was getting at. "Six isn't exactly a lucky number," I hedged. "If I were looking for a good number I'd have to go up to seven." I shrugged. "Or down to three.

handicapping heaven, searching for patterns, and a portal of probability opening up onto the meaning of life

He would conclude that nothing was real except chance.

The world is governed by chance. Randomness stalks us every day of our lives.

nothing was real except chance.

To blithely say "it could have happened" that a life-permitting, life-producing, and life-sustaining universe is the product of chance is naive. It fails to take seriously all that is required to get from "zero" to a single-celled organism to Homo sapiens.

Writing a journal article combines all the elements that deter motivation: The probability of success is low; the likelihood of criticism and rejection is high; and the outcome, even if successful, isn't always rewarding.

A good man has as much chance of dying as a bad one. Maybe more so.

Luck is statistics taken personally.

An unlikely event is likely to happen because there are so many unlikely events that could happen.

Half of the skill in magick consists of identifying probabilities worth enhancing.