But 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. For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Philosophy for Laymen,” Universities Quarterly (1946-11)
(Source)
Reprinted in Unpopular Essays, ch. 2 (1951).
Quotations about:
ambiguity
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Old Age, tho’ despised, is coveted by all Men.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 3795 (1732)
(Source)
Nor need we be surprised that men so often embrace almost any doctrines, if they are proclaimed with a voice of absolute assurance. In a universe that we do not understand, but with which we must in one way or another somehow manage to deal; and aware of the conflicting desires that clamorously beset us, between which we must choose, and which we must therefore manage to weigh, we turn in our bewilderment to those who tell us that they have found a path out of the thickets and possess the scales by which to appraise our needs. Over and over again such prophets succeed in converting us to unquestioning acceptance; there is scarcely a monstrous belief that has not had its day and its passionate adherents, so eager are we for safe footholds in our dubious course.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
Speech (1955-01-29), “A Fanfare for Prometheus,” American Jewish Committee annual dinner, New York City
(Source)
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
Warped with satisfactions and terrors, woofed with too many ambiguities and too few certainties, life can be lived best not when we have the answers — because we will never have those — but when we know enough to live it right out to the edges, edges sometimes marked by other people, sometimes showing only our own footprints.
Rosalie Maggio (1944-2021) American writer
The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, Introduction (1996)
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!
If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it’s quite conscious.
Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) American educator, diplomat
Speech, as quoted in The New York Tribune (14 Oct 1963)
On appointment as President of Yale University.
Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized a man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.”
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Minority Report : H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, #418 (1956)
(Source)
I had wanted to wrap this book up in a neat little package about a girl who is a comedienne from Detroit, becomes famous in New York, with all the world coming her way, gets this horrible disease of cancer, is brave and fights it, learning all the skills she needs to get through it, and then, miraculously, things are neatly tied up and she gets well. I wanted to be able to write on the book jacket: “Her triumph over cancer” or “She wins the cancer war.” I wanted a perfect ending, so I sat down to write the book with the ending in place before there even was an ending.
Now I’ve learned, the hard way. that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Like my life, this book has ambiguity. Like my life, this book is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity, as Joanna said.Gilda Radner (1946-1989) American comedian
It’s Always Something, ch. 16 “Change” (1989)
(Source)
Joanna was Radner's psychotherapist.
Too much positive is either scared or stupid or both. Reality is uncertain.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Early Autumn (1981)
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 1 “Life,” ix (1912)
Full text.
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
“Miss Manners,” syndicated column (1982-08-28)
(Source)
Widely cited as a Miss Manners quotation, this is actually the headline given in at least some outlets (e.g., The Washington Post) for this date's column (which may or may not have been the title suggested by the column itself). The phrased in an expanded form in the article:In any case, Miss Manners does not believe in ending a summer fling by explaining that it was a summer fling, when the other person might have considered it significant. Neither does one document the decline of one's interest; it is not nearly so charming a story as the build-up of feeling was, at the beginning of the summer.
There is no way to be kind in such an assignment, but you can at least be vague.
