Quotes About Uncertainty

Rouge et Noir

You should at least wear a life jacket, she scolded. If I do go over and watch my boat sail off into the sunset, I told her, I don't relish the idea of hanging about for several days while my flesh is slowly picked by fish, like some kind of oceanic bird feeder.

He pointed out that he tended to live the life of a vagabond because he could never fully commit himself to one place or one job. He rented a television set because he could never settle on just which set to buy, and noted that most major purchases were difficult or impossible to deal with.

Prediction," as Niels Bohr liked to say, "is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

So it may be that going to the hospital slightly increases your odds of surviving if you've got a serious problem but increases your odds of dying if you don't. Such are the vagaries of life.

Unless you have more information, however, it's hard to say what's causing what.

Simply admit that the future is far less knowable than you think.

That is a lethal combination—cocky plus wrong—especially when a more prudent option exists: simply admit that the future is far less knowable than you think.

The future is far less knowable than you think.

But putting your faith in a coin toss—even for a tiny decision—may at least inoculate you against the belief that quitting is necessarily taboo.

It isn't only that we know less than we pretend about the outside world; we don't even know ourselves all that well.

If it takes a lot of courage to admit you don't know all the answers, just imagine how hard it is to admit you don't even know the right question. But if you ask the wrong question, you are almost guaranteed to get the wrong answer.

MODERATOR: Tonight, our guest: Thomas Sargent, Nobel laureate in economics and one of the most-cited economists in the world. Professor Sargent, can you tell me what CD rates will be in two years? SARGENT: No.

riesgo = peligro + escándalo.

After recent events, one might wonder if the macroeconomy is the domain of any economist.

But as we've seen lately, such predictions are generally worthless.

What looks inevitable in hindsight is often invisible with foresight.

Rilke knew what was up. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, one distant day, live right into the answer. What's truer than that...

Fully alive and deeply committed is a risky business.

All no means is they don't know for sure or there's a secret being kept, like someone's trying to hide something really good.

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor favor to those of skill, but time and chance happen to them all. An essential part of rationality is dealing with randomness in our lives and uncertainty in our knowledge.

Not only does the universe not care about our desires, but in the natural course of events it will appear to thwart them, because there are so many more ways for things to go wrong than for them to go right.

Social scientists should never try to predict the future; they have enough trouble predicting the past.")

The momentary confusion experienced by everyone in the vicinity when a cell phone rings and no one is sure if it is his/hers or not: conphonesion, phonundrum, ringchronicity, ringxiety, fauxcellarm, pandephonium.