Quotes About Uncertainty

Doc Webster's eyes rolled briefly, like loaded dice, and came up snake eyes.

In short, we suffer from an "illusion of control" that fools us into thinking the future is more predictable and less uncertain than it really is. Or worse, we believe we can influence chance events through our own actions.3

We will declare frankly that nothing is clear in this world. Only fools and charlatans know and understand everything. —ANTON CHEKHOV

Without mystery, there was no faith.

We all subscribe to preposterous beliefs; we just don't know yet which ones they are. We

They were inculcated with a firm sense of noblesse oblige, as with a respect for hierarchy; the Slonim girls knew well how to decode a social situation, and what they could rightfully expect from one. In part these seemed to be survival tactics for living in an uncertain time.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. —VOLTAIRE

The chances that lose in the lottery of being are invisible

Just as it is impossible to predict with complete accuracy the path of a single electron, so too you cannot know with certainty the future behavior of a single potato. Thus far observations show that man has mashed potatoes millions of times, but it is not inconceivable that one time in a billion the situation could reverse itself, that a potato could mash a man.

contact, the goal for which we are striving, is as vague and obscure as communion with the saints or the coming of the Messiah.

Nie wiedziaÅ'em nic, trwajÄ…c w niewzruszonej wierze, ?e nie minÄ…Å' czas okrutnych cudów.

la idea de anunciar la poesía de Shakespeare mil años antes de su nacimiento carece de sentido. Pues el autor podía no haber nacido, haber fallecido en la infancia, haber vivido de otra manera y, por tanto, escribir de otra forma; sin embargo, el habla inglesa preveía la existencia misma de la poesía inglesa.

Unease flickered in his eyes. "It's not so straightforward," I said in a deliberately light tone. "I don't mean the traditional God of terrestrial beliefs. I'm no specialist in religion, and I may not have come up with anything new, but do you happen to know if there ever existed a faith in… a defective God?

Non ero pazzo. L'ultima speranza si dileguava.

the old doctrine of ignoramus et ignorabimus—"we do not know and will not know.

One has only to look through the history of science to reach the most probable conclusion: that the shape of things to come is determined by things we do not know today, and by what is unforeseeable.

Wpatrzony w ciemniejÄ…ce niebo, w gwiazdy, które byÅ'y tylko widmowym cieniem ziemskich gwiazd, staÅ'em bez ruchu, a w pustce, która zastÄ™powaÅ'a gonitwÄ™ myÅ›li sprzed chwili, rosÅ'a bez sÅ'ów martwa, obojÄ™tna pewno??, ?e tam, dokÄ…d nie mogÅ'em siÄ™gn??, wybraÅ'em ju? i udajÄ…c, ?e nic siÄ™ nie staÅ'o, nie miaÅ'em nawet tyle siÅ'y, ?eby sobÄ… wzgardzi?.

Pensa che in un razzo l'uomo può scoppiare come un pallone o restare pietrificato, o andare arrosto, e poi rimangono solo gli ossicini, a ballonzolare fra le pareti di latta, sulle orbite del progresso! Noi abbiamo seguito, con gioia, questa stupenda via... e siamo arrivati, e in queste celle, sopra questi piatti, tra immortali lavandini, con una schiera di armadi fedeli, di gabinetti affezionati, qua c'è la nostra realizzazione...

aun sin certeza, los problemas imposibles de resolver pueden, sin embargo, resolverse de manera aproximada

no hay cosa que deseéis más que averiguar lo que no podéis averiguar! Pero qué le vamos a hacer.

Quien crece, nunca sabe de antemano si se adentra en un saco, en un túnel, o si penetra, sin posibilidad de retorno, en una zona de silencio; o si, en cambio, emergerá de ella aún más poderoso.

La oscuridad se poblaba. Oía pasos. Algo se amontonaba por encima de mí, se adueñaba de mí, me envolvía y me penetraba, impalpable, inconsistente. Petrificado, dejé de respirar, no había aire para respirar.

So that where I once did not know who or what you were, now I wonder who I or we are, or what. What planet is this anyway, my dear?

We worked hard, we were just making it—then they raised the interest rates, or closed the schools, or changed the laws....