Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.
~By George Boole ~
I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.
~By Jose Saramago ~
A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.
~By Henry A. Wallace ~
As a painter today you have to work without that essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself and accepts this lack of certainty, other things may come into play.
~By Bridget Riley ~
Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
~By Will Durant ~
That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.
~By Joseph Glanvill ~
For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.
~By Stanislav Grof ~
Although economists have studied the sensitivity of import and export volumes to changes in the exchange rate, there is still much uncertainty about just how much the dollar must change to bring about any given reduction in our trade deficit.
~By Martin Feldstein ~
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is really advice to myself, a reminder to myself not to avoid change or uncertainty, but to go with it, to surf into change.
~By Alan Alda ~
Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
~By Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~
The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.
~By Jeremy Bentham ~
In this era of uncertainty and conflict, the United States - blessed with the world's strongest military, most ingenious economy, and most tolerant society - remains a model and leader to the world.
~By Joe Lieberman ~
When prayer removes distrust and doubt and enters the field of mental certainty, it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith.
~By Ernest Holmes ~
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
~By Bertrand Russell ~
Uncertainty is a sign of humility, and humility is just the ability or the willingness to learn.
~By Charlie Sheen ~
The 21st Century has begun as an era of uncertainty, with a heightened focus on security and public safety.
~By Gavin Newsom ~
Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.
~By Tom Stoppard ~
The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century. If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.
~By George W. Bush ~
Investors don't like uncertainty.
~By Kenneth Lay ~
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
~By Denis Diderot ~
When the human mind exists in the light of reason and no more than reason, we may say with absolute certainty that Man and all that made him will be in that instant gone.
~By Loren Eiseley ~
Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.
~By Alphonse Karr ~
We often call a certainty a hope, to bring it luck.
~By Elizabeth Bibesco ~
All that's left now is purely poetic work, putting more life into individual places, as I've made so sure of the fundamental mood and dimension of expression that it won't leave me groping around in uncertainty any more.
~By Oskar Kokoschka ~
For those with ambition, reality is more of a creation than an unalterable certainty.
~By Lori Guinn ~
Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.
~By Richard Stallman ~
The glorious uncertainty of the law was a thing well known and complained of, by all ignorant people, but all learned gentleman considered it as its greatest excellency.
~By Richard Brinsley Sheridan ~
It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.
~By Richard P. Feynman ~
We measure our days out in steps of uncertainty not turning to see how far we've come. And peer down the highway from here to eternity and reach out for love on the run.
~By Al Stewart ~
If you just watch a teenager, you see a lot of uncertainty.
~By Jamie Lee Curtis ~
We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.
~By Nicolaus Copernicus ~
But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty.
~By Christian Lous Lange ~
There is no certainty; there is only adventure.
~By Roberto Assagioli ~
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
~By Henry David Thoreau ~
If it is widely assumed that the new President cannot move forward simply because of a narrow victory, there can easily develop a sense of unease and uncertainty, adversely affecting every sector of American society, our economy and the perception of other nations.
~By Richard V. Allen ~
The uncertainty of the danger belongs to the essence of terrorism.
~By Jurgen Habermas ~
Well, as a former small businessperson - I understand what's going on, I think in the business community. And businesspeople around the country are looking at all the spending and all the debt. They're looking at all the policies coming out of this Congress and this administration the last two years, and they - it's created all this uncertainty.
~By John Boehner ~
Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.
~By Henri Frederic Amiel ~
If you don't think you want to go on a train and read the paper every day and work from nine to six at night, there was something about the uncertainty when I was younger which was very attractive.
~By Ron Silver ~
Many slaves on this continent are oppressed, and their cries have reached the ears of the Most High. Such are the purity and certainty of his judgments, that he cannot be partial in our favor.
~By John Woolman ~
I don't think we should tell them what we're going to do in advance. Let them think. Worry. Wonder. Uncertainty is the most chilling thing of all.
~By Vernon A. Walters ~
The American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.
~By John McCain ~
There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
~By Robert Burns ~
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
~By Karl Von Clausewitz ~
I would say that without any doubt he's the killer - the law says beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty which I - there's no question that he was the killer of President Kennedy.
~By Henry Wade ~
Benjamin Franklin said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But I'd like to add a third certainty: trash. And while some in this room might want to discuss reducing taxes, I want to talk about reducing trash.
~By Ruth Ann Minner ~
The real effect of the WTC calamity has been depressed spirits, anxiety, and uncertainty among publishers, and of course those emotions are not restricted to publishers.
~By Richard Curtis ~
Information is the resolution of uncertainty.
~By Claude Shannon ~
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.
~By William Congreve ~
The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism.
~By John C. Calhoun ~
I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.
~By James Lovelock ~
I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.
~By Jorge Luis Borges ~
When we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty.
~By Charles Evans Hughes ~
I always work out of uncertainty but when a painting's finished it becomes a fixed idea, apparently a final statement. In time though, uncertainty returns... your thought process goes on.
~By Georg Baselitz ~
A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.
~By Rudyard Kipling ~
I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.
~By Hans Blix ~
It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose.
~By Clifford D. Simak ~
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
~By Bertrand Russell ~
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
~By William Congreve ~
We have to be mindful that there is the certainty that terrorists will attempt to launch multiple attacks against their enemy, which is us and our allies.
~By Cofer Black ~
Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
~By Adam Smith ~
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
~By Vincent Van Gogh ~
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
~By Voltaire ~
I used to be scared of uncertainty; now I get a high out of it.
~By Jensen Ackles ~
Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
~By Garrett Hardin ~
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.
~By Michael Crichton ~
Mystery is gone to the certainty of technological principles. So the real terror, the real aggression against life comes in the form of the pursuit of our technological happiness.
~By Godfrey Reggio ~
If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
~By William Lyon Phelps ~
We can say with certainty - or 90% probability - that the new industries that are about to be born will have nothing to do with information.
~By Peter Drucker ~
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
~By Ursula K. LeGuin ~
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
~By George Byron ~
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.
~By Ashley Montagu ~
The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding.
~By Rem Koolhaas ~
Spending a weekend with Hitler would have been boring in the extreme, although you would have had a greater certainty in coming back alive.
~By Alan Bullock ~
This implies that the laws governing organic cohesion, the organization leading from the part to the whole, represent a biological uncertainty, indeed an uncertainty of the first order.
~By Walter Rudolf Hess ~
I never imagined it wouldn't work out for me. I had that absolute certainty in myself that has seen me through, I think, and my parents were absolutely behind me all the way.
~By Ewan McGregor ~
The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.
~By May Sarton ~
To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.
~By Stanislaus I ~
If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!
~By Blaise Pascal ~
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
~By Salman Rushdie ~
And for mathematical science, he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of hellebore.
~By Joseph Glanvill ~
From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.
~By Tom Stoppard ~
I have moved from certainty to doubt, from devotion to rebellion.
~By Phil Donahue ~
Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.
~By Patrick J. Kennedy ~
Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions.
~By Edward Coke ~
The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.
~By Hannah Arendt ~
Ideas which have been developed simultaneously or in immediate succession in the same mind mutually reproduce each other, and do this with greater ease in the direction of the original succession and with a certainty proportional to the frequency with which they were together.
~By Hermann Ebbinghaus ~
There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.
~By Rupert Sheldrake ~
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 do for those who study it.
~By Bertrand Russell ~
The statistics of life out there and the statistics of intelligent beings and advanced civilization is a certainty, the way I look at it. that It has not been accepted, because we've been in an anthropocentric era.
~By Story Musgrave ~
When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.
~By Kenneth Lay ~
If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.
~By William Barclay ~
Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
~By Benjamin Franklin ~
The only certainty is that nothing is certain.
~By Pliny The Elder ~
So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.
~By Ted Nelson ~
To allow all U.S. workers to put part of their earnings into private investment accounts would definitely erode the Social Security system and cause uncertainty for new investors.
~By Grace Napolitano ~
The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless is mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.
~By Arianna Huffington ~
One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.
~By Timothy Garton Ash ~
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
~By Ursula K. Le Guin ~
Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying.
~By J. Paul Getty ~
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