Quotes About Uncertainty

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma.

We shouldn't ever think we know what's next. The only thing we can anticipate is the unexpected.

Your guess [about the future of technology] is as good as mine. The only thing I'm sure of is (a) most of the predictions I hear are almost certainly wrong, and (b) the things that will turn out to be important will come as a surprise, even though in hindsight they'll seem perfectly obvious.

The only way to reduce the variability in the estimate is to reduce the variability in the project.

As Thomas Hobbes observed in the 17th century, life under mob rule is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Life on a poorly run software project is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and hardly ever short enough.

Some things in life you just aren't going to be able to think your way through—so you might as well save yourself the stress by simply trusting your way through them.

He was neither asleep nor awake, neither this nor that. It was some new state that he was in, some new kind of nonexistence.

Travel takes control away from us, exposing our weakest points. We are acutely aware of our vulnerability. We are naive, unaccustomed, unacquainted, unversed. We are ignorant, roaming in the darkness of the unfamiliar. We are lonely, lost, disoriented. Travel pushes us across the chasm. We are moved to explore the mysterious, to confront our fear, to venture beyond the challenging, cryptic crevasses of our path.

One thing you will quickly discover is that there are no permanent answers in the study of political philosophy, only permanent questions.

Their eyes met again, and this time there were no great answers there, only questions that would never be satisfied. A

Boss, what, exactly, are we doing here?" "Feeling maudlin." "Oh. Good. How long are we planning on doing that?" "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" "What?" "Never mind.

Yes?" she said. "And who might you be?" I bowed, because it seemed the appropriate response. "I might be Jill's friend." I said. "Or I might be an Israeli terrorist looking for PLO supporters. Or possibly a burglar trying to steal your jewels to support my laudanum habit. Or even a neighbor complaining about the volume. That is "Heart of Uncle," isn't it? It really ought to be louder.

It is as if I have changed in some way, but I can't tell what it is, or if it will fade with time.

If we do not know what we are doing, then it follows no one else does either; and, if no one knows what we are going to do, well then, why is someone so determined to stop us from doing it?

doubt is less easily dispelled than illusion, and with doubt come tentative half-measures—and nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished by tentative half-measures.

I have strong opinions about ambivalence.

The unknowable lives in a pack of cards after it has been fairly shuffled but before it has been dealt, when all the possibilities are open, and when each possibility matters.

If you were on a bus trying to go east in a maze of dirt roads in a large valley, you might not be able to tell your direction from moment to moment. If someone took a series of snapshots, sometimes the bus might be facing north, or south, or even west, even though all the while this is a journey to the east.

Even though they knew intellectually that they had not been guilty of sabotaging the relationship, each woman couldn't help but look for a rational explanation and wonder whether it was something she did—or neglected to do—that set the man off. But in most cases, nothing went wrong in the relationship. In fact, part of the problem is that he backs off when things are going too well. You see, the only thing wrong is that this man simply cannot make a commitment.

There are some things that are better left unknown until the time is right. The time is not right until death, which, in my opinion, makes death something to look forward to, not dread.

Boxing several favorites in a race is a concession that you have no opinion of any value

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.

We are not simple creatures. You dream that with memories will come knowledge, and from knowledge, understanding. But for every answer you find, a thousand new questions arise. All that we are has lead us to where we are, but tells us little of where we're going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.

When one does not know what one seeks, caution is the surest armour.