Quotes About Uncertainty

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. ... So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. [...] To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

To endure uncertainity is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance. Theology induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.

Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in

them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.

to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

Fear of death is not wisdom, since no one knows whether death may not be the greater good.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty.

Uno de los aspectos más dolorosos de nuestros tiempos es que los estúpidos están muy seguros de sí mismos mientras los inteligentes están llenos de dudas

When admitting that nothing is certain, one must also, I think, admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

one should not regard anything that one accepts as quite certain, but only as probable in a greater or a less degree. Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Gran parte de las dificultades por las que atraviesa el mundo se deben a que los ignorantes están completamente seguros y los inteligentes llenos de dudas.

We are at the present day passing through a somewhat confused period, when many people have thrown over the old standards without acquiring new ones.

A incerteza, na presença de grandes esperanças e receios, é dolorosa, mas temos de suportá-la, se quisermos viver sem o apoio de confortadores contos de fadas (...). Ensinar a viver sem essa segurança e sem que se fique, não obstante, paralisado pela hesitação, é talvez a coisa principal que a filosofia, em nossa época, pode proporcionar àqueles que a estudam.

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

went to Russia a Communist; but contact with those who have no doubts has intensified a thousandfold my own doubts, not as to Communism in itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.

The demand for certainty is an intellectual vice.

You would think ill of a soldier who refused to fight unless victory was certain. The person who needs religion to bolster up his own purposes is a timorous person, and I cannot think as well of him as of the man who takes his chances, while admitting that defeat is not impossible.

as Shakespeare says: "What's to come is still unsure." Even the shrewdest men are apt to be wildly astray if they prophecy so much as 10 years ahead. Some people will consider this doctrine immoral, but after all it is the Gospel which says "take no thought for the morrow.