Quotes About Uncertainty

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question...

I am no prophet—and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And a hundred visions and revisions

What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree : you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say 'this we know'.

I have seen the eternal Footman snicker hold my coat, and snicker. And in short I was afraid...

We do not know until the shell breaks what kind of egg we have been sitting on.

What shall we do tomorrow What shall we ever do? We shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door

What shall I do now? What shall I do? I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow? What shall we ever do? The hot water at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Leš što si ga lane zakopao u bašti Pušta li ve? izdanke? Ho?e li procvetati ove godine, Il' mu je nenadna stud leju uništila?

Because I do not hope to know again The infirm glory of the positive hour Because I do not think Because I know I shall not know The one veritable transitory power

I am no prophet—and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker

I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing

One thing you cannot know: The sudden extinction of every alternative, The unexpected crash of the iron cataract. You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it. You only know what it is not to hope: You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you Or to fling it away, to join the legion of the hopeless Unrecognized by other men, though sometimes by each other.

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon . . . Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a "dying fall" Now that we talk of dying— And should I have the right to smile?

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

We know too much, and are convinced of too little.

In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

We haven't seen him for nearly eight years; And to tell the truth, now that we've seen him, We're a little worried about his health. He doesn't seem to be . . . quite himself.

Anything is possible, but many things are highly unlikely. Only those who will risk going to far can possibly find out how far one can go.

You do not know, You cannot know, you cannot understand.

You bring me news Of a door that opens at the end of a corridor, Sunlight and singing; when I had felt sure That every corridor only led to another, Or to a blank wall; that I kept moving Only so as not to stay still. Singing and light.