Quotes About Uncertainty

At the moment I have very little evidence and lots of theories. I'm itching to reverse the proportions.

If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.

For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like.

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.

Non di rado accade che, quando un uomo si trova contrariato in modo inconsueto e violentemente assurdo, egli cominci a nutrir dubbi sulle sue più salde convinzioni. Egli comincia, per così dire, a dubitare vagamente che, per strana che la cosa possa sembrare, la ragione e la giustizia si trovino dall'altra parte.

Life is governed by chance, not wisdom.

Ama inanç, bir çakal gibi mezar taÅŸlar? aras?nda beslenir ve en canl? umutlar?n? bile bu ölü kuÅŸkulardan devÅŸirir.

Cada ballenera lleva un buen número de cartas para varias naves: entregarlas a los destinatarios depende del mero azar de encontrarlos en los cuatro océanos. Así, muchas cartas nunca llegan a destino, y otras sólo son recibidas cuando ya han cumplido dos o tres años.

You can't assume a goddamned thing in this Navy.

The trouble started one morning when there was a fog.

the winds of war have been blowing us all around the world.

One of the central identity problems that has to be worked out during a career transition is deciding on the story that links the old and new self. Until that is solved, the external audience to whom we are selling our reinvention remains dubious, and we too feel unsettled and uncertain of our own identity.

when we follow our passions, we also risk escalating our emotional commitment to a new course of action before we have evidence that it will be doable.

???? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ???????? ???????. You can see from that, Croesus, that man is entirely a creature of chance" (Trans. de Sélincourt)

It's so much easier to have a crush on someone who you know isn't going to respond-it makes it nice and safe and you never have to humiliate yourself by getting knocked back.

Weather My folder of poems labeled "weather" holds no clues as to whether or not there'll be any weather to count on, say, a hard rain like "little nails, or that deluge "plunging radiant" now that we've plunged into war and wars don't stop like rain stops like that last slow drizzle onto the old tin bathroom vent sweet hint of growth in the soft wet drift north fire or ice, fire or ice are you breathing, are you lucky enough to be breathing

i didn't see anyone! she said. who were you shooting at? what happened? there was a long silence. the men looked at each other. then clellan spoke, a little tentatively. he's very fast.

Is there any reward? I'm beginning to doubt it. I am broken and bored, Is there any reward? Reassure me, Good Lord, And inform me about it. Is there any reward? I'm beginning to doubt it.

The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.

But things never go according to plan. In fact, I think if you're really attached to controlling your future, you should plan for the opposite of what you want just to confuse the cosmic comedians whose sole job is to figure out what you think your future should hold so they can preclude it from ever happening.

I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

perhaps having all encountered the nightmare that haunted Pope — "that he was engaged in a long journey," as Joseph Spence reports, "puzzled which way to take, and full of fears" that it would never end. And if you reach the end, the fears may start in earnest.

the thunder has sounded--but who knows where the rain's going to fall.