Quotes About Uncertainty

The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late.

I remember the difficulty we had in the beginning replacing magnetic cores in memories and eventually we had both cost and performance advantages. But it wasn't at all clear in the beginning.

People think that knowing the future can help you prepare for what is to come - but often it only makes you powerless.

Stars and planets, after all, travelled on predictable orbits - but the wind, nobody knew where the wind would choose to go.

once you have lifted your foot, do not be in a hurry to put it down again: who can tell what menacing nest of vipers you might step on.

To pick a modern image we once heard, but can't remember where: life is like driving a car with its front window opaque. All you have to go by are your rearview mirrors.

O castigo dos desconfiados é suspeitar de tudo, dia e noite. Suspeitar até de si mesmos e das próprias suspeitas

It's frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what is going on.

Metaphors] replace genuine uncertainty about the world with semantic ambiguity. A metaphor is a cover-up.

For all we know, the handwriting might have been on the wall all along. The question is: was the ink invisible?

As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

For example, the questions that say, Would you prefer... Would you prefer (a) Answer questions about what you do, (b) Answer questions about what you know, (c) Answer questions about what you think? My answer is Depends. But it's not one of the choices. I am having to think in terms of Always, Sometimes, Never.

The problem with Fate is that no matter how many times you call out to her, she has her own timing that's irrelevant to whatever anyone else happens to be doing

That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.

I felt stuck in the bottom of a wishing well. I was desperate to shout what I wanted, but I didn't know what that was. I knew only what it wasn't. The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

I thought about things, the pros and cons. But in the end I would be so confused, because I never believed there was ever any one right answer, yet there were many wrong ones.

The only thing certain in times of great uncertainty is that people will behave with great strength or weakness, and with very little else in between.

I worried that Harold would someday get a new prescription for his glasses and he'd put them on one morning, look me up and down, and say, Why, gosh, you aren't the girl I thought you were, are you?

When you are told, It was meant to be, ask, Who meant it? What does it really mean? Is someone trying to make you accept an undesirable situation or one in which you have doubts? When you are told, Shit happens, remember that plenty of other things happen as well, such as generosity, forgiveness, ambiguity, and uncertainty. When you are told, It's simply fate, ask yourself, What is simple about it? What are the alternatives of fate? What is fate's opposite?

But my main motivation is fear of regret. I worry that if I didn't go, one day I'd look back and wonder, What if I had?

That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love—that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more, maybe less, ten thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination—and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.

I felt as if I were running in a labyrinth, chasing after something I could not see yet knew was important. I sensed it was just ahead, and then it would go around a corner, and I would be lost. I would have to decide what to do next, where to go, and what I needed to get out of that confusing place. If I stopped running and stood still, I would be accepting that what I had was all I would ever have. And then I would no longer be lost, because there would be nowhere else to go.

The moving cliff gave us the feeling we had to look behind us to know what lay ahead.

bad, how likely is it to come