Certainty Quotes - Page 29

• In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity. Without impermanence, there is no process. The nature of life is change. All hope is based on process.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Change, Attachment, Wish

  Rachel Naomi Remen (2006). “Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition”, p.162, Penguin

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• I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths.

  Alain de Botton

  Atheist, Giving Up, Memories

  "Katie Antoniou interviews Alain de Botton on his new book 'Religion for Atheists'". Interview with Katie Antoniou, www.run-riot.com. January 24, 2012.

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• In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Philosophy, Voting, Political

  Douglas MacArthur, Edward T. Imparato (2001). “General MacArthur: Wisdom and Visions”, p.130, Turner Publishing Company

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• People are saying that they want be convinced [about global warming], perfectly. They want to know the climate science projections with 100 per cent certainty. Well, we know a great deal and even with that there is still uncertainty. But the trend line is very clear. We never have 100 per cent certainty. We never have it. If you wait till you have 100 per cent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield. That's something we know. You have to act with incomplete information. You have to act based on the trend line.

  Gordon R. Sullivan

  People, Waiting, Environmental

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• It is the certainty that you are about to recover, that brings results, not the hope.

  Emile Coue

  Healing, Results

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• Continually revise your relationship to God until the only certainty you have is not that you are faithful, but that He is.

  Oswald Chambers

  Faithful, Our Relationship

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “Conformed to His Image / Servant as His Lord: Lessons on Living Like Jesus”, p.38, Discovery House

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• I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY.

  Howard Zinn

  Believe, Giving, Historical

  Howard Zinn (2011). “The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy”, p.709, Seven Stories Press

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• I am devilishly afraid, that's certain; but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant.

  John Dryden

  Evil, May, Valiant

  John Dryden (1976). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume XV: Plays: Albion and Albanius, Don Sebastian, Amphitryon”, p.248, Univ of California Press

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• The only time a dead certainty applies is in a dream world.

  Tommy Franks

  Dream, World, Certain

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• One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.

  Doris Lessing

  Insecure, Accepting, Uncertain

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• This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime!

  Robert James Waller

  Once In A Lifetime, Kind, Certain

  "Fictional character: Robert Kincaid". "The Bridges of Madison County", www.imdb.com. 1995.

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• What can we say with certainty?

  Voltaire

  Certain

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• Doubt is long-winded. Certainty is brief.

  Mason Cooley

  Long, Doubt

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• {While meditating} I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don't question or doubt whether I am in the "correct" state or not. There is no effort, only rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty. When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Effort, Understanding, Doubt

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• There is a call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.

  Oswald Chambers

  Spiritual, Perseverance, Knowing

  Oswald Chambers (2010). “My Utmost for His Highest”, p.124, Discovery House

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• To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

  John Stuart Mill

  Hearing, Opinion, Assuming

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from which I had to free myself. According to him, human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I pointed out it was the former that had condemned me.

  Albert Camus

  Divine Justice, Would Be, Sin

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Stranger”, p.118, Vintage

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• Self-help must precede help from others. Even for making certain of help from heaven, one has to help oneself.

  Morarji Desai

  Self, Heaven, Helping

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• We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

  James Anthony Froude

  Faith, Peace, Probability

  James Anthony Froude (1868). “Short Studies on Great Subjects”, p.193

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• In the absence of certainty, instinct is all you can follow.

  Jonathan Cainer

  Absence, Instinct

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• To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it.

  Hugh Laurie

  Jobs, Knowledge, People

  "Of Moods and Motorcycles". Interview with David Hochman, www.playboy.com. February 2009.

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• We are born into a vast room whose walls consist of a thousand doors of possibility. Each door is flung open to the world outside, and the room is filled with light and noise. We close some of the doors deliberately, sometimes with fear, sometimes with calm certainty. Others seem to close by themselves, some so quietly that we do not even notice.

  Terry Teachout

  Wall, Doors, Light

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• Living with doubt ... is almost always more profitable than living with certainty.
  People don't like doubt, so they pay money and give up opportunities to avoid it.
  Entrepreneurshi p is largely about living with doubt. If you need reassurance, you're giving up quite a bit to get it. On the other hand, if you can get in the habit of seeking out uncertainty, you'll have developed a great instinct.

  Seth Godin

  Giving Up, Opportunity, Hands

  "Living with doubt". sethgodin.typepad.com. December 5, 2010.

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• The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds.

  Albert Camus

  Giving, Choices, Bitterness

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.67, Vintage

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• Your imagination is ten times more potent than your willpower. Unleashed, it provides a sense of certainty and tenacious vision that goes far beyond any limitation of the past.

  Tony Robbins

  Past, Imagination, Vision

  FaceBook post by Tony Robbins from Oct 13, 2014

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