Quotes About Uncertainty

And all the time, deep within her, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked sailor she scanned her solitude with desperate eyes for the sight of a white sail far off on the misty horizon. She had no idea what that chance would be, what wind would waft it to her, where it would set her ashore, whether it was a launch or a three-decker, laden with anguish or filled to the portholes with happiness. But every morning when she woke she hoped to find it there.

Charles, del resto, non era di quelli che scendono al fondo delle cose; arretrò davanti alle prove, e la sua gelosia incerta si smarrì nell'immensità del suo dolore.

Se veía deshonrado, arruinado, perdido! Y su imaginación, asaltada por una multitud de hipótesis, se agitaba en medio de ellas como un tonel vacío arrastrado al mar y que flota sobre las olas.

Alors, elle s'aperçut qu'elle n'avait plus rien à faire, plus jamais rien à faire... La douce réalité des premiers jours allait devenir la réalité quotidienne qui ferait la porte aux espoirs indéfinis,aux charmantes inquiétudes de l'inconnu. Oui, c'était fini d'attendre. Alors plus rien à faire aujourd'hui, ni demain, ni jamais.

In that case I was a somnambulist — was living, without knowing it, that double, mysterious life which makes us doubt whether there are not two beings in us — whether a strange, unknowable, and invisible being does not, during our moments of mental and physical torpor, animate the inert body, forcing it to a more willing obedience than it yields to ourselves.

The wise man says: Perhaps?

Les habitants, dans leurs chambres assombries, avaient l'affolement que donnent les cataclysmes, les grands bouleversements meurtriers de la terre, contre lesquels toute sagesse et toute force sont inutiles.

For the same thing happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force.

cuando se es valiente, esto no ocurre ni ante un ataque, ni ante la muerte inevitable, ni ante todas las formas conocidas de peligro: ocurre en ciertas circunstancias anormales, bajo ciertas influencias misteriosas frente a riesgos vagos. El

July 6. I am going mad. Again all the contents of my water-bottle have been drunk during the night; or rather I have drunk it! But is it I? Is it I? Who could it be? Who? Oh! God! Am I going mad? Who will save me?

I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walking just now in the sun by the riverside, doubts as to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts such as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point.

The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.

We like to believe, or pretend, we know what we are doing in our lives. It can be a lie. Winds blow, waves carry us, rain drenches a man caught in the open at night, lightning shatters the sky and sometimes his heart, thunder crashes into him bringing the awareness he will die. We stand up, as best we can under that. We move forward as best we can, hoping for light, kindness, mercy, for ourselves and those we love.

An economic depression or a pandemic could occur. You never know. . . .

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. BERTRAND RUSSELL

Maybe I'm not cold. Maybe I'm just lost. Do lonely and cold feel the same? At bottom are they the same thing?

No me importaba el futuro; huir, bien mediante curación, inconsciencia o muerte, era cuanto me importaba.

Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come-but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.

Memories and possibilities are even more hideous than realities.

Well, we have to do something. There are all sorts of rumours about soldiers coming up. These people are full of rumours. They love rumours. Paterson stood watching the bridge. Their whole life is a rumour.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. - H.L. Mencken

the geometry of the place was all wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were horizontal

It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more.