Ambiguity Quotes - Page 2

• The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Vocabulary, Important, Transition

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• On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

  Adam Smith

  Cities, Progress, Valleys

  Adam Smith (1978). “Powers of Mind”

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• Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end.

  Gilda Radner

  Goodbye, Farewell, New Beginnings

  Gilda Radner (2015). “It's Always Something”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm a participant in the doctrine of constructive ambiguity.

  Vernon A. Walters

  Doctrine, Constructive, Participants

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• The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.

  Julian Baggini

  Healthy, Mind, Obfuscation

  "What is this foolish lust for uncertainty?" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. October 28, 2011.

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• I don't have a distaste for ambiguity, in fact, ambiguity is what I think life is all about.

  Robert Rubin

  Thinking, Facts, Life Is

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• A blur of great magic is still just a blur.

  Ken Weber

  Magic, Hazy, Blur

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• The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.

  Ralph Ellison

  Music, Art, Failing

  Ralph Ellison (2003). “The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison”, Random House LLC

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• In the future there cannot be room for ambiguity. They have to make their position absolutely clear before they can expect anyone to respond to it.

  David Trimble

  Rooms, Clear, Position

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• The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

  Scott Turow

  Purpose, Narrative, Complexity

  "'To hell with Perry Mason'". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2002.

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• The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements, as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.

  Paul Tillich

  Success, Maturity, Achievement

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• The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens, whether the cancer never flares up again or whether you die, the important thing is that the days that you have had you will have lived.

  Gilda Radner

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Cancer

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• In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.

  Robert James Waller

  Love, Dream, Matter

  "The Bridges of Madison County". Book by Robert James Waller, 1992.

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• The denial of "self" challenges only the notion of a static self independent of body and mind-not the ordinary sense of ourself as a person distinct from everyone else. The notion of a static self is the primary obstruction to the realization of our unique potential as an individual being. By dissolving this fiction through a centered vision of the transiency, ambiguity, and contingency of experience, we are freed to create ourself anew.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Independent, Unique, Self

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• My path to wisdom began when I stopped pretending to know things I didn't know. When I explicitly admitted to the limits of my knowledge, stopped building on ambiguity and ignorance, and instead realized that I knew nothing, not even the things I thought I knew.

  Tucker Max

  Ignorance, Limits, Path

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• Ambiguity lurks in generality, and may thus become an instrument of severity.

  Felix Frankfurter

  May, Instruments, Generalities

  "McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. February 14, 1949.

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• Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Moral, Purity, Satire

  E.L. Doctorow (2008). “Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993-2006”, p.70, Random House

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• Non-ambiguity is the shaping force of reality.

  Joseph Pearce

  Inspirational, Reality, Force

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• We live in times that are in many ways ambiguous. Maybe that's why kids want precision in what they read - they don't like that moral ambiguity.

  Lois Lowry

  Kids, Want, Way

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• Ambiguity depletes as your budget rises.

  Tony Gilroy

  Budgets

  "Tony Gilroy on The Bourne Legacy: 'Fear changes everything'" by Catherine Shoard, www.theguardian.com. August 16, 2012.

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• This ambiguity is another example of a growing problem with mathematical notation: There aren't enough squiggles to go around.

  Jim Blinn

  Example, Growing, Problem

  Jim Blinn (1998). “Jim Blinn's Corner: Dirty Pixels”, p.94, Morgan Kaufmann

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• Ambiguity in directors is a hard thing to deal with.

  Skeet Ulrich

  Directors, Deals, Hard

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• Writing a really general parser is a major but different undertaking, by far the hardest points being sensitivity to context and resolution of ambiguity.

  Graham Nelson

  Writing, Different, Resolution

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• Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable.

  Gene Wolfe

  Doubt, Stories, Closure

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• The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

  Aldrich Ames

  Mistake, Confusion, Use

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