Certainty Quotes - Page 3

• From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

  Tom Stoppard

  Reality, Principles, Facts

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• 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

  Food, Science, Half

  Christian Reflections Para. 22 (p. 111)

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• I really think that living is the process of going from complete certainty to complete ignorance.

  Richard Dreyfuss

  Ignorance, Thinking, Process

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Lying, Unique, Men

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• Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspiring, Dream, Hope

  "Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala". Book by Václav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson. Chapter 5: "The Politics of Hope", 1990.

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• If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

  Blaise Pascal

  Journey, Sea, Battle

  Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters and Minor Works”, p.87, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Intellectual, Vices

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.62, Routledge

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• A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

  Henry A. Wallace

  Change, Believe, Certainty In Life

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• The scientist believes in proof without certainty.

  Ashley Montagu

  Religious, Fear, Science

  "Science and Creationism". Book by Ashley Montagu (Introduction, p. 9), 1984.

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• To believe with certainty, we must begin with doubting.

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Faith, Believe, Doubt

  "Maxims and Moral Sentences". Book by François de La Rochefoucauld, pp. 153-186, No. 61, 1851.

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• Spending a weekend with Hitler would have been boring in the extreme, although you would have had a greater certainty in coming back alive.

  Alan Bullock

  Weekend, Alive, Boring

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• We often call a certainty a hope, to bring it luck.

  Elizabeth Bibesco

  Hope, Luck

  Elizabeth Bibesco (1951). “Haven: Short Stories, Poems, and Aphorisms”

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• We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Earth, Surface, Regard

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1978). “On the revolutions”

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• But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty.

  Christian Lous Lange

  Giving, Belief, Consideration

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• Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions

  Edward Coke

  Mother, Causes, Coke

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• And for mathematical science, he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of hellebore.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Math, Doubt, Needs

  Joseph Glanvill (1885). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science ; in an Essay of the Vanity of Dogmatizing and Confident Opinion”

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• You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Appeals, United Nations, Comfortable

  New Republic, November 4, 1985.

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• I have moved from certainty to doubt, from devotion to rebellion.

  Phil Donahue

  Uprising, Doubt, Rebellion

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• What a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!

  George Meredith

  Soul, Hot, Answers

  Modern Love st. 50 (1862)

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• No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

  George Eliot

  Business, Achievement, Done

  George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.385

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• Psychologists have set about describing the true nature of women with a certainty and a sense of their own infallibility rarely found in the secular world.

  Naomi Weisstein

  Nature, World, Psychologist

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• How is it that one rails against that which is nearly a certainty?

  Mary Anne Radmacher

  Twilight, Rail

  Mary Anne Radmacher (2008). “Live Boldly: Cultivate the Qualities That Can Change Your Life”, p.151, Conari Press

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• That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Inquiry, Matter, Belief

  Joseph Glanvill (1979). “Collected Works of Joseph Glanvill”, Georg Olms Verlag

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• No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Science, Disorder, Cures

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.377

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• A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Women, Intuition, Absolute Certainty

  Rudyard Kipling (2016). “Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated Edition): 5 Novels & 350+ Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Military Works and Autobiographical Writings from one of the most popular writers in England, known for The Jungle Book, Kim, The Man Who Would Be King”, p.724, e-artnow (Open Publishing)

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