Quotes About Uncertainty

But otherwise it's darkness, darkness, as far as the eye can see.

Really?" Professor Skullface blinked at her in confusion. "Why ever not?

One moment you're cruising along effortlessly at thirty thousand feet while the cabin crew slosh the whisky around in business class, the next you're in a screaming death-spiral with flames pouring from the hole where the starboard engine was meant to be before some toe-cheese puked a missile up its exhaust. It takes a little time to switch mode from business-as-usual to six-alarms-emergency if you're not primed to expect it

What could have been Henry Cutter's

By the time we made our way through the crowded tables and reached the hotel lobby, the two men were nowhere to be seen. Lucy pressed on to the front entrance, and we followed. On the steps in front of the hotel, we looked across the boulevard to a vast green expanse of trees, shrubs, and lawns. There was still no sign of the two men. We looked up and down the wide pavement, again without seeing either Dietrich or Richter

The [Value at Risk model] was like a faulty speedometer, which is arguably worse than no speedometer at all. If you place too much faith in the broken speedometer, you will be oblivious to other signs that your speed is unsafe. In contrast, if there is no speedometer at all, you have no choice but to look around for clues as to how fast you are really going.

Is the journey still worthwhile if the mountain turns out to be enshrouded in fog at the top?

Os maiores riscos nunca são aqueles que você pode ver e mensurar, mas aqueles que você não pode ver e, portanto, jamais poderá mensurar. Aqueles que parecem tão distantes, fora das fronteiras da probabilidade normal, que você não consegue nem imaginar que possam acontecer na sua vida – mesmo que, é claro, aconteçam, com mais frequência do que você se dá conta.

I won $2 playing the lotto today. And I might win $2 again tomorrow. But if I buy thousands of $1 lottery tickets, each with an expected payout of $.56, then it becomes a near mathematical certainty that I will lose money.

The broader lesson—and one of the core lessons of personal finance—is that you should always insure yourself against any adverse contingency that you cannot comfortably afford to withstand. You should skip buying insurance on everything else.

Although the field of statistics is rooted in mathematics, and mathematics is exact, the use of statistics to describe complex phenomena is not exact.

On the other hand, the most likely outcome, meaning the one that will happen most often, is that the company will not discover a cure for baldness and you will get only $250,000 back.

The law of large numbers suggests that an investment firm, or a rich individual like Warren Buffet, should seek out hundreds of opportunities like this with uncertain outcomes but attractive expected returns. Some will work; many won't. On average, these investors will make a lot of money, just like an insurance company or a casino.

Instead, we have to assume that repeated samples of just 25 will produce more dispersion around the true population coefficient—and therefore a distribution with "fatter tails.

Second, even if the underlying data could accurately predict future risk, the 99 percent assurance offered by the VaR model was dangerously useless, because it's the 1 percent that is going to really mess you up.

What makes us leave what we love best? What is it inside us that keeps erasing itself When we need it most, That sends us into uncertainty for its own sake And holds us flush there until we begin to love it And have to begin again? What is it within our own lives we decline to live Whenever we find it, making our days unendurable, And nights almost visionless? I still don't know yet, but I do it.

Sometimes I feel my thoughts are not my own, that I am thinking wrong things, stupid things, ridiculous things, for the amusement of an unseen audience.

start. It occurs to me that both in my dreams and in my waking life there exists the same question: What now? Something happens or nothing happens, and either way, I have to decide what to do next. There is no end to it. Well, no, there is one end to it, and that revelation leads me to this conclusion: "What now?" is the definition of life.

We are strangers," Peter said darkly. "Whom do we know? One—if you're lucky. Not many more. Looks like we've got to learn how we can trust each other. How we can tell … How can we dare … Everything rests on trust between strangers. Everything else is a house of cards.

He told me that people whose default is fear tend to second-guess everything they do. They tend to be indecisive, and many end up leading very safe lives. They are not interested in risk or adventure—

Funny how you plod through childhood wishing for the clock to move faster, so you can enter the coveted world of adulthood where you can make your own decisions and plot your own course. Next thing you know you're wading through the uncertainty of your twenties and then trying to fix the mistakes you made in your thirties. Then without warning the pace quickens, The forties come and go and by fifty—everything takes off at warp speed.

in the darkness, but

The word "future" and females is a dangerous combination.

When your novel first peeks its head into the world, it will look pretty much like every newborn: blotchy, hairless, and utterly confused.