Quotes About Uncertainty

Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain, because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better evidence or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use but is also in fact damaging, if we value reliability.

Any board-room sitter with a taste for Wall Street lore has heard of the retort that J. P. Morgan the Elder is supposed to have made to a naïve acquaintance who had ventured to ask the great man what the market was going to do. "It will fluctuate," replied Morgan dryly.

couldn't find it in my heart to believe her death would result in a complete annihilation; I think I accepted her body's death from the beginning, but there was another part of me that believed her mind, or her spirit, or something else that could not be defined, would never really

I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather.

It is dangerous ... to apply to the future inductive arguments based on past experience.

Son, different rules apply during the End of the World." I did not know what to say to that.

There is nothing we need to do that isn't dangerous.

Whereas what we need is to fumble around in the darkness, because that's where our lives (not necessarily all of the time, but at least some of the time, and particularly when life gets problematical for us) takes place.

We, the garden of technology. We, undecidable.

We are already dead but not yet in the ground. - Fear

The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism.

Philosophers] are like a traveler passing through a field at night who in a momentary lightning flash sees far and wide, but the sight vanishes so swiftly that he is plunged again into the darkness of night before he can take even a step-let alone be directed on the way by its help.

But however they may sport with its uncertainty, had they to seal their own doctrine with their blood, and at the expense of life, it would be seen what value they put upon it. Very different is our confidence - a confidence which is not appalled by the terrors of death, and therefore not even by the judgment - seat of God.

For while the unbelievers flourish, they do not know what is waiting for them on the next day; therefore, they must always live in turmoil because of perplexity and fear; neither

As all future events are uncertain to us, so we hold them in suspense, as if they might incline to one side or the other. Yet in our hearts it nonetheless remains fixed that nothing will take place that the Lord has not previously foreseen.

They were all down there trying to wire the shackle. Each one of them alone, clinging to the stem of a mushroom anchor with one breath inside. One breath. It didn't matter if you got the shackle wired or not. There was no up. When your breath was done, no up." John Casey, Spartina

At length he told the Lord he would leave it in His hands. Peace flowed back. No voice or light disclosed the next move,

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.

A good question is never answered.

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?My friends forsake me like a memory lost.

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

I can't tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family, it's like going to somebody else's Christmas dinner, everyone knows everyone, and you're there and you're not quite sure what you're supposed to be doing.

debate in his troubled thoughts, however. Despite this, they

The biggest risk is not taking any risk … In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.