Quotes About Uncertainty

Development is a treacherous river, as everyone who plunges into its currents knows.

Confusão možno chápaÃ…Â¥ ako stav neistoty a bezradnosti. Vidíme okolo seba zúriÃ…Â¥ confusão, ale nemôžeme spraviÃ…Â¥ ni?, aby sme ho zastavili. ÄŒo máte nové? Confusão! Každý, kto rozumie významu tohto slova, vie už vtedy vÅ¡etko.

Everybody knows what the world is like: anything can happen. And here is what happened on the Dune: five people, saving the land, saved themselves. What could they have wanted before that? To try one more time. To have a chance. And they were given that chance. 'It's good,' says Rysiek, 'that they gave it to us. And that it worked out.

If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. Even though the result may gladden the whole world, that cannot help the hero; for he knows the result only when the whole thing is over, and that is not how he became a hero, but by virtue of the fact that he began.

If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.

Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility

Faith is the most important factor in religious questions. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.

In fact one is tempted to ask whether there is a single man left ready, for once, to commit an outrageous folly.

At vove er at miste fodfæstet et kort øjeblik - ikke at vove er at miste sig selv.

Believe a woman, you will regret it, believe her not, you will also regret that; believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both; whether you believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both. ... This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy.

What is to come? What does the future hold? I don't know, I have no idea. When from a fixed point a spider plunges down as is its nature, it sees always before it an empty space in which it cannot find a footing however much it flounders. That is how it is with me: always an empty space before me, what drives me on is a result that lies behind me. This life is back-to-front and terrible, unendurable.

Doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world.

Just as a physician might say that there is very likely not one single living human being who is completely healthy, so anyone who really knows mankind might say there is not one single living human being who does not…secretly harbor an unrest, an inner strife, a disharmony, an anxiety about an unknown something or something he does not even dare to try to know, an anxiety about some possibility in existence or an anxiety about himself…an anxiety he cannot explain.

De omnibus dubitandum est

Every person shudders at becoming a personality, shudders at standing as a personality vis-à-vis others?he shudders at it because he knows very well that this makes it possible for the others to catch sight of him. The human being shudders at becoming manifest; thus he loves, if not pitch darkness, then at any rate twilight, mystification, impersonality.

Maldito azar! ¡Tú, mi único amigo íntimo, único ser al que creía digno de confianza, de mi alianza y de mi enemistad, siempre inestable y siempre igual a ti mismo, siempre incomprensible, eterno enigma!

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.

Nunca se sabe qué desesperadas ideas pueden ocurrírsele a un hombre desesperado; en ocasiones, hasta los más tímidos y previsores se atreven, en tal estado, a los más audaces actos.

Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eyes as in the abyss . . . Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

How then did Abraham exist? He believed. This is the paradox which keeps him upon the sheer edge and which he cannot make clear to any other person, for the paradox is that he as the individual puts himself in an absolute relation to the Absolute.

Historiallisissa kysymyksissä suurinkin mahdollinen varmuus on vain likiarvo.

It takes a talent to doubt, it requires no talent at all to despair (pp515)

In some matters, he said, it is better to be intellectually uncertain rather than superficially sure. This will still leave us with a great deal to be certain about, while maintaining a humility to learn.

Perhaps we will meet again. Anything is possible, especially in a place like this.