Certainty Quotes - Page 15

• He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain.

  Voltaire

  Strong, Eye, Math

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• When salvation is viewed as man's program, it is left up to man as to whether he will let God do this or that, but when it is viewed as God's program, there is a confidence and a certainty that no one whom God regenerates will be a carnal Christian.

  Michael Horton

  Christian, Letting Go, Men

  Michael Horton (2011). “Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel”, p.151, Baker Books

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• We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.

  James Thurber

  Play, Self, Certainty Of Death

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

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• Devotion to the facts will always give the pleasures of recognition; adherence to the rules of design, the pleasures of order and certainty.

  Kenneth Clark

  Order, Giving, Design

  Kenneth Clark (1950). “Landscape Painting”

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• I'm opposed to censure, .. Whether or not one will be permitted, it's under discussion. It isn't ruled out, but it's not a dead-bang certainty either.

  Henry Hyde

  Bangs, Discussion, Censure

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• It seemed perfectly possible that, in spite of my certainty of my own genius, I might die of some illness, or perhaps even in a street accident, before I had ever glimpsed the meaning of life. My moods of happiness and self-confidence convinced me that I had a "destiny" to become a famous writer, and to be remembered as one of the most important thinkers of the century.

  Colin Wilson

  Self Confidence, Destiny, Important

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• If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.

  Henry Miller

  Heaven, Found, Ifs

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.192, New Directions Publishing

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• Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty because even in the vacuum matter is one; and if we don't see this, it's because we are blinding ourselves to it.

  David Bohm

  Vacuums, Matter, Consciousness

  David Bohm, Lee Nichol (2003). “The Essential David Bohm”, p.149, Psychology Press

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• I think uncertainty is good for things. Certainty breeds complacency and complacency means that you just sit somewhere in your nice little comfortable suburban house in Michigan, looking at CNN and saying, "Oh, those poor immigrant children that are all coming across the border. But we really can't have them here - that isn't what God wants. Let's send them all back to the drug cartels." There's a complacency to it.

  Stephen King

  Children, Nice, Mean

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

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• Not doubt, certainty is what drives one insane.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Doubt, Insane

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1989). “On the Genealogy of Morals”, Vintage

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• In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Effort, Physics, Modern

  The Feynman Lectures on Physics (pp. 6-1 1)

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• Oh, the truth, oh yeah, lot of trouble that got us into, didn't it, over the last maybe thousand years? Hitler knew the truth, so did Stalin, so did Mao Zedong, so did the Inquisition. They all knew the truth and that caused such horror. Certainty is the enemy.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Years, Enemy, Lasts

  "Anthony Hopkins Interview 'The Rite'; Plus Updates on 'Thor', 360, Composing Music, Painting, and a lot More". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. January 26, 2011.

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• The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.

  Carl Sandburg

  Certainty In Life, Life Is, Uncertainty

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• Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.

  James G. Frazer

  Buddhism, Blow, Roots

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• Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Giving, Doubt, Enough

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• In the ideal State laws are few and simple, because they have been derived from certainties. In the corrupt State laws are many and confused, because they have been derived from uncertainties.

  Solon

  Confused, Simple, Law

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• Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety, and variety alone.

  Winston Churchill

  Lying, Oil, Safety

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• In times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it.

  Gavriel David Rosenfeld

  Moving, Views, Trying

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• A person who knows all the answers, has an opinion on everything, has a certainty backed up by rational argument, has very little possibility of further progress. Such a person is unlikely to walk away from a discussion with anything more than a reaffirmation of how right he or she has been all along.

  Edward de Bono

  Progress, Answers, Littles

  Edward De Bono (1991). “I Am Right, You are Wrong: From this to the New Renaissance : from Rock Logic to Water Logic”, Penguin Group USA

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• Never was I so devout as when I composed The Creation. I knelt down each day to pray to God to give me strength for my work....When I was working on The Creation I felt so impregnated with Divine certainty, that before sitting down to the piano, I would quietly and confidently pray to God to grant me the talent that was needed to praise Him worthily.

  Joseph Haydn

  Piano, Giving, Each Day

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• Faith is not a question of basking in the certainty that there is a God and that God is taking care of us. Many of us are never granted this kind of assurance. Certitude is not the real substance of faith. Faith is a way of seeing things.

  Ronald Rolheiser

  Real, Way, Substance

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• The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty and both - precision and certainty are impossible to attain.

  Karl Popper

  Quests, Impossible, Precision

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• Because we are God's children...we can bring our needs to him with certainty in prayer.... Prayer is not some kind of heavenly lottery. Nor does the Bible counsel us to pray with an "I hope this will work"...attitude. Instead...prayer brings us before the throne of grace as children seeking the help of their heavenly Father. That's the heart of breakthrough, successful prayer-the bold confidence that we are talking to the Father who delights to supply our needs.

  Jim Cymbala

  Children, Attitude, Prayer

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• An aphorism is an extreme synthesis of thesis and antithesis, theory and practice, it's a mixture of intuition and observation, hypothesis and illusions of certainty and probability, history and stupidity.

  William C. Brown

  Practice, Stupidity, Intuition

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• Most human things are full of conflict and ambivalence, not ease and simplicity. The world has grown increasingly fundamentalist, and the parameters of discussion have become narrowed. People, when they're fearful, are vulnerable to certainty in rhetoric.

  Dana Spiotta

  People, Simplicity, Ease

  Source: www.believermag.com

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