Certainty Quotes - Page 31

• One of the odd things about being a writer is that you never reach a point of certainty, a point of mastery where you can say, Right. Now I understand how this is done.

  Jenny Offill

  Odd Things, Mastery, Done

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• There is a kind of certainty that seems to characterize Jared Smith's best work, an understanding about place and the flow of spirit that makes you think of Thoreau along with a commitment as fierce as that of Pablo Neruda.

  Joseph Bruchac

  Commitment, Thinking, Make You Think

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• To say that one need art, or politics, that incorporate ambiguity and contradiction is not to say that one then stops recognizing and condemning things as evil. However, it might stop one being so utterly convinced of the certainty of one's own solutions. There needs to be a strong understanding of fallibility and how the very act of certainty or authoritativeness can bring disasters.

  William Kentridge

  Strong, Art, Evil

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• Marie Houzelle is a master of the first-person narrative. In Tita she has created a strange, utterly original child whose deadpan certainties are a beguiling invitation to readers of all ages.

  Katharine Weber

  Children, Age, Narrative

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• Certainty creates strength. Certainty gives one something upon which to learn. Uncertainty creates weakness. Uncertainty makes one tentative if not fearful, and tentative steps, even when in the right direction, may not overcome significant obstacles.

  John M Barry

  Giving, Weakness, Overcoming

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• I cleanse the windows of my mind, that it may become a mirror reflecting inspiration from the most High. I do this, not with strenuous effort, but through quiet contemplation, through gently reaching and affirming an inward recognition. I know exactly what to do in every situation. There is an inspiration within me which governs every act, every thought, with certainty, with conviction and in peace.

  Ernest Holmes

  Inspiration, Mirrors, Effort

  Ernest Holmes (2007). “This Thing Called You”, p.114, Penguin

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• New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East.

  John Gregory Dunne

  New York, Congratulations, Self

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• Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Destiny, Men, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.11

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• There are two modes of knowledge: through argument and through experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but it does not cause certainty nor remove doubts that the mind may rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.

  Roger Bacon

  Education, Two, Doubt

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• The first indication that we are killing our dreams is lack of time.
  The second indication of the death of our dreams is certainty.
  The third indication that our dreams are dead is peace.

  Paulo Coelho

  Dream, Inspiration, Firsts

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• Certainty ends inquiry.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Learning, Inquiry, Ends

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• My only complaint with 'Dickie' Bird is that he requires a degree of certainty that is almost neurotic; like the man who has to keep going to the front door to make certain that he's locked it.

  Mike Brearley

  Men, Doors, Umpires

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• Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?

  George Eliot

  Play, Needs, Inward

  George Eliot (2016). “Daniel Deronda: Top Novelist Focus”, p.243, 谷月社

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• A great man, who was convinced that the truths of political and moral science are capable of the same certainty as those that form the system of physical science, even in those branches like astronomy that seem to approximate mathematical certainty. He cherished this belief, for it led to the consoling hope that humanity would inevitably make progress toward a state of happiness and improved character even as it has already done in its knowledge of the truth.

  Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet

  Character, Science, Men

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• Gauss replied, when asked how soon he expected to reach certain mathematical conclusions, that he had them long ago, all he was worrying about was how to reach them!

  Rene Dubos

  Math, Long Ago, Worry

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• I remember one occasion when I tried to add a little seasoning to a review, but I wasn't allowed to. The paper was by Dorothy Maharam, and it was a perfectly sound contribution to abstract measure theory. The domains of the underlying measures were not sets but elements of more general Boolean algebras, and their range consisted not of positive numbers but of certain abstract equivalence classes. My proposed first sentence was: "The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces."

  Paul Halmos

  Math, Class, Numbers

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• Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Inspirational, Life, Confusion

  Leonardo (da Vinci), Irma A. Richter, Thereza Wells (2008). “Notebooks”, p.9, Oxford University Press

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• Living by faith isn't living with certainty. It's trusting God in spite of unanswered questions and unresolved doubts.

  Rick Warren

  Doubt, Unanswered Questions, Trust In God

  Twitter post from Jan 02, 2014

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• Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

  Julian Barnes

  Giving, Decision, Enough Time

  Julian Barnes (2011). “The Sense of an Ending”, p.93, Random House

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• The only things of certainty are Death and Taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Taxes

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• I remembered standing in the middle of the street in front of The Crooked Bookshelf, filled with the certainty of a future. I had heard the wolves howling behind the house and remembered how glad I had been to be human.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  House, Middle, Heard

  Maggie Stiefvater (2014). “Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)”, p.567, Scholastic Inc.

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• Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties.

  Michael Faraday

  Speculation

  The Homiletic Review, April 1896.

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• We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win. Hope is not a plan, but hope is our plan.

  Atul Gawande

  Winning, Dollars, Tickets

  Atul Gawande (2014). “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End”, p.92, Metropolitan Books

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• A vital part of philosophizing is learning to trust one's own intuitivist intelligence, getting one's center of gravity back between one's feet. In our culture-so outer-directed, "objective" or extraverted-this is already heresy. This is self-mastering thinking, centered in what has been well-tested as certainties: autarkia or self-rule.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Thinking, Feet

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• If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.

  Pema Chodron

  Planets, Ifs, Security

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