Quotes About Uncertainty

Today was scary. But they're all scary. We can't fret around the planet waiting for something to kill us, or worried something's going to kill someone we love. I'm not going to stare off into the void waiting for it all to end.

Everybody is shaky. If

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

In Gilead, the narrator's friend's son describes himself not as an atheist but in "state of categorical unbelief." He says, "I don't even believe God doesn't exist, if you see what I mean." I pointed this passage out to Mom and said it closely matched my own views--I just didn't think about religion.

That day at chemo, we talked once more about the ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. "I just really want to know which character dies. I've read the ending again and again," I said. "I hate not knowing." "I do too. That's why I always read endings first. But sometimes you just can't know what's going to happen, even when you know everything there is to know. So you prepare for the worst but hope for the best.

it felt like I was headed right back to where I started—that once again I could lose everything I had, and that maybe I didn't deserve any of it. Maybe I had done something wrong.

Life is lived on the edge.

most of the unexpected changes we react to will turn out to be of no importance:

Omdat men zal weten dat over de mens niets te bewijzen valt, dat er van hem in doen en laten, in wezen en verschijning, in heden en verleden, nog geen schim valt te bekennen van wat hij is en is geweest. Wij zijn niets anders dan de strandvonders van ons eigen leven, brokstukken verzamelend langs de zee der vergetelheid. In onze hand lopen wij met de verroeste spijkers van een groot, gezonken schip - en wij denken dat dit oudroest een horloge is.

Wij zijn als regendruppels die, tegen het raam van een voortrazende trein geblazen, met kleine rukjes verder kruipen; niemand kan precies voorspellen welke weg ze zullen volgen, al komen ze op den duur wel allemaal aan de rand van het glas terecht, om te vervloeien en te verdwijnen.

De twijfel zit in zijn werk als een breipatroon in een damesblad.

It is, after all, hard to know what to choose when you aren't really sure what you want.

we should love all of our dear ones …, but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever—nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long.

all we have is "on loan" from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission—indeed, without even advance notice. Thus,

The person who, in contrast, is a stranger to discomfort, who has never been cold or hungry, might dread the possibility of someday being cold and hungry. Even though he is now physically comfortable, he will likely experience mental discomfort—namely, anxiety with respect to what the future holds in store for him.

remember that all we have is "on loan" from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission—indeed, without even advance notice.

While praying, always duck and cover. The authentic spiritual pilgrimage may require that you walk all the way up a holy mountain, only to haul your ass right back down and still not have a clue where you were, are, or will be.

No course was open to me save to leap, with eyes self-bound, into the yawning abyss of the future.

There are only two kinds of investors: those who don't know where the market is headed, and those who don't know that they don't know. Then again, there is a third kind: those who know they don't know, but whose livelihoods depend on appearing to know.

It is, of course, quite impossible to make forecasts about the future except on the hypothetical postulate that in all matters where the nature of changes cannot be definitely foreseen and taken into account, the future is assumed to be a continuance of the past.

He who shall teach the child to doubtThe rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

My mother groan'd! my father wept.Into the dangerous world I leapt:Helpless, naked, piping loud,Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.

An adventure differs from a mere feat in that it is tied to the externally unattainable. Only one end of the rope is in the hand, the other is not visible, and neither prayers, nor daring, nor reason can shake it free.