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Quotations about uncertainty
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
“Historicism,” The Month (Oct 1950)
(Source)
Regarding historical inquiry based on incomplete evidence. First reprinted in Christian Reflections (1967).
Man must accept the responsibility for himself and the fact that only by using his own powers can he give meaning to his life. But meaning does not imply certainty; indeed, the quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel a man to unfold his powers. If he faces the truth without panic, he will recognize that there is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers, by living productively.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Man for Himself, ch. 3 (1947)
(Source)
ALCESTE: Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths.
[Les doutes sont fâcheux plus que toute autre chose.]
Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Le Misanthrope, Act 3, sc. 5, l. 1122 (1666) [tr. Wormeley]
Alt. trans.: "Doubts are more torturing than any truth." [tr. Page]
A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, “Children” (1887) [ed. William Drysdale]
(Source)
So we have to make guesses in order to give any utility at all to science. In order to avoid simply describing experiments that have been done, we have to propose laws beyond their observed range. There is nothing wrong with that, despite the fact that it makes science uncertain. If you thought before that science was certain — well, that is just an error on your part.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Character of Physical Law, ch. 3 “The Great Conservation Principles” (1965)
(Source)
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.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!
Men become civilized not in proportion to their willingness to believe but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“What I Believe,” sec. 4, Forum and Century (Sep 1930)
(Source)
Suspicion begets suspicion.
The ignorance of even the best-informed investor about the more remote future is much greater than his knowledge, and he cannot but be influenced to a degree which would seem wildly disproportionate to anyone who really knew the future, and be forced to seek a clue mainly here to trends further ahead. But if this is true of the best-informed, the vast majority of those who are concerned with the buying and selling of securities know almost nothing whatever about what they are doing. They do not possess even the rudiments of what is required for a valid judgement, and are the prey of hopes and fears easily aroused by transient events and as easily dispelled.
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please — you can never have both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Intellect,” Essays: First Series (1841)
(Source)
Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.
Hope for the best.
Expect the worst.
The world’s a stage.
We’re unrehearsed.
Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere.
The best advice I’ve ever received is, “No one else knows what they’re doing either.”
There are many fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of some less fortunate fellow traveler. Today you can make your life big, broad, significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with it as you will.
So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain.
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!
I’m not really rich. I’m something far more noble I’m a job creator. [Heavenly chorus] Sort of the same way Patagonian tooth-fish became Chilean sea-bass. [Heavenly chorus] But y’know what, just by suggesting, just by bringing it up, that he is going to tax me more, Comrade Obama has created an atmosphere of uncertainty that makes me skittish about creating more jobs, yeah, I have been so freaked out that today at breakfast I could barely butter my gold. You see, you poor people, you don’t get how much “uncertainty” gives us job creators the willies. It’s terrifying — like when you find out your private island has natives; or when your wife notices the maid’s kid looks just like you; or when the limo driver tries to start a conversation. So tax me at a higher rate if you like, you’re practically firing yourselves. Because I’ll tell you something, I have been so shitting in my pants about this uncertainty thing, that yesterday I let go a dozen essential workers at my compound, including my Tivo programmer, my manscaper, the liposuctionist, my gardener’s personal trainer, my dog whisperer, the lookalike I hired to foil assassination attempts, my private farmer, the lady who dispenses hand sanitizer after our pre-show prayer circle, the girl I pay to mistake me for Jon Hamm, and the guy who takes care of the shark tank. Which reminds me, I’m gonna have to let go two sharks!
Look, I tried the cat experiment. On the third trial, the cat was dead. On each of the subsequent 413 trials, it remained dead. Am I doing something wrong?
James Nicoll (b. 1961) Canadian reviewer, editor
“SCHRODINGER’S CAT??” sci.physics, Usenet (11 Mar 1992)
(Source)
When thinking about life, remember this: no amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 1 “A Long-expected Party” (1954)
(Source)
If ever there’s a tomorrow where we’re not together, there is something you must remember. You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
(Misattributed)
(Source)
Christopher Robin to Pooh Bear. The quotation is broadly attributed to Milne and Winnie the Pooh, but is actually from the 1997 Disney video Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, written by Carter Crocker and Karl Geurs, based on the characters created by Milne.
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.
The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Interview with Antonio Spadaro, America Magazine (30 Sep 2013)
(Source)
Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
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.”
We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, “You don’t know what you are talking about!”. The second one says, “What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?” and so on.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, 8-2 “Motion” (20 Oct 1961)
(Source)
Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt you don’t even know if you owe.
The causes of the Great Depression are still far from certain. A lack of certainty, it may also be observed, is not evident in the contemporary writing on the subject. Much of it tells what went wrong and why with marked firmness. However, this paradoxically can itself be an indication of uncertainty. When people are least sure they are often most dogmatic.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Great Crash, 1929, ch. 9 “Cause and Consequence,” sec. 3 (1954)
(Source)
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.
The longing for certainty and repose is in every human mind. But certainty generally is an illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“The Path of Law,” 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897)
(Source)
Scientists take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure — that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes that this is true.
Too much positive is either scared or stupid or both. Reality is uncertain.
When you want to test the depths of a stream, don’t use both feet.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
[Le doute n’est pas une condition agréable, mais la certitude est absurde.]
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia (28 Nov 1770) [tr. Tallentyre (1919)]
(Source)
Alt trans.
- "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- "Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one."
- "Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one."
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Unhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.
Don Herold (1889-1966) American humorist, cartoonist, author
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Lawrence Peter, Peter's People (1979) as "Herold's Law."