Quotes About Uncertainty

The hard, true thing about our deepest fears is that what happens is completely out of our control. Life is primarily out of our control. People are out of our control, and certainly their choices are out of our control. There is only one person we can ultimately choose life over fear for. Ourselves.

Lo mejor será que hables lo menos posible de tus planes. Uno ya no sabe adónde te puede llevar una conversación, ni qué puedes esperar de personas a las que conoces de toda la vida.

Anche dalle apocalissi si può tornare indietro, se uno ha il coraggio di guardarci dentro. Ma voi non avete questo coraggio. Parlate di tutte le apocalissi, meno che della vostra. Lasciate pure a noi spiriti l'ultimo colpo di spada. Non posso spiegarle cosa accadrà, Hacarus. Tutto ciò che è troppo diverso da quello che siete soliti pensare, voi lo chiamate nulla. Bene, dopo di noi ci sarà il nulla. E in questo nulla qualcosa ricomincerà.

All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent

What we knew is dead, and maybe the greatest part of what we were is dead. What's out there is new and perhaps good, but it's nothing we know.

I cannot be assured of exactly what I created be it madness and monster or beauty and light.

It may be safe to walk, but where do you go when all directions wear the same black ashen despair?

The trees' bare bony fingers point crookedly towards Heaven or Hell or worse than that, towards nowhere.

If someone wants to lead a double life, they will find a way to do it. And they can promise you things until your nerves unfold and you can finally put up your feet. But it can all be a lie. There are no guarantees, even when people mean what they say at the time. People change their minds. People die. And the hurt is as real as a baseball bat.

Delicate, hauntingly uncertain music floated out of the house. Vane heard it as he walked up from the stables. The lilting strains reached him, then wrapped about him, about his mind, sinking into his senses. They were a siren's song- and he knew precisely who was singing. Halting on the graveled drive before the stable arch, he listened to the moody air. It drew him- he could feel the tug as if it was physical. The music spoke- of need, of restless frustration, of underlying rebellion.

Are you planning to stay? He looked down at her. That, he stated, his voice very low, depends largely on you. Patience looked into his grey eyes- and froze. Every muscle was paralyzed, all the way to her toes. The idea that he was amusing himself, without any real intent, died- slain by the look in his eyes. The intent in his eyes. It could've have been clearer had he put it into words.

EL-FAYOUMY: Yes. Mother. Is there a Hell? MOTHER TERESA: I hope not, but I think so.

The emptiness of self, for instance, is not the denial of individual uniqueness but the denial of any permanent, partless, and transcendent basis for individuality. The anguish and uncertainty of human existence are only exacerbated by the preconceptual, spasm-like grip in which such assumptions of transcendence hold us.

one can either believe in rebirth or not believe in it. But there is a third alternative: that of agnosticism—to acknowledge in all honesty that one does not know. One does not have either to assert it or to deny it; one neither has to adopt the literal versions presented by tradition nor fall into the other extreme of believing that death is a final annihilatio? This, I feel, could provide a good Buddhist middle way for approaching the issue today.

All believers, by definition, must be agnostics. The moment you declare that you believe in God or the law of karma, you are acknowledging that you do not know whether they exist or not. For if you did know, you would have no need to believe. Only fools, fanatics, and omniscient beings would claim to know such things.

Life is a groundless ground: no sooner does it appear, than it disappears, only to renew itself, then immediately break up and vanish again. It pours forth endlessly, like the river of Heraclitus into which one cannot step twice. If you try to grasp it, it slips away between your fingers.

if something is so far beyond your imagination, it's hard even to fear it.

But then science is nothing but a series of questions that lead to more questions, which is just as well, or it wouldn't be much of a career path, would it?

There are no promises in life. All we can do is try hard, give everything our best shot and stay true to ourselves.

I have decided that maybe I want to write when I grow up. I just don't know what I would write.

As much as I feel sad, I think that not knowing is what really bothers me.

It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It just happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. And then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can't. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me.

Something really is wrong with me. And I don't know what it is.

It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody.