Certainty Quotes - Page 37

• Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.

  J. G. Holland

  Fashion, America, Public Opinion

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• The abuse of the veto power has become so predictable that frequently resolutions are not even tabled because of the certainty of a veto against their adoption. Necessary discussion is thereby suppressed. Concerted action by the Security Council, the General Assembly and other United Nations agencies is necessary to prevent major human rights violations, stop ongoing breaches and provide remedies to victims.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Agency, Rights, Adoption

  "Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order". August 07, 2013.

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• It is wise to be sure, but otherwise to be too sure.

  Sophie Irene Loeb

  Wise

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• we cannot break a law of eternal justice, however ignorantly, but throughout the entire universe will there be a jar of discord that will so trouble the divine harmonies that in the rebound we shall find each man his own hell! The sooner we arrive at this knowledge, the sooner we take the certainty to our souls, the sooner do our lives begin to assume the square allotted to us.

  Charlotte Saunders Cushman

  Men, Squares, Law

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• Vast ills have followed a belief in certainty.

  Kenneth Arrow

  Belief

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• American businesses are looking for are certainty and executive orders don't really get them that.

  Eric Bolling

  Order, American Business, Executives

  "Critics pan Obama's threat to bypass Congress". "The Five" with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino, and Greg Gutfeld, www.foxnews.com. January 16, 2014.

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• in this curious world there are certain beings to whom it is given to say of all things with naïve faith, not 'I shall seek,' but 'I shall find.

  Katherine Cecil Thurston

  Confidence, World, Curious

  Katherine Cecil Thurston (2008). “Max (EasyRead Large Bold Edition)”, p.130, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• This may be the very nature of love, a passion as fickle as the sea, full of certainty when the object of desire is absent, yet dubious when confronted again with the lover's presence.

  Tobsha Learner

  Passion, Sea, Desire

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• See that unfortunate soldier who is falling hurt to death ("tombe blessé à...", Fr.) on the battlefield; he learns that his folks have vanquished and dies happy. He detached himself from himself (s'est détacher de lui-même", Fr.), has identified himself with something greater and more lasting than himself; his homeland ("patrie", Fr.); thus, while dying as an individual, he has the certainty to survive in a larger existence.

  African Spir

  Hurt, Fall, Soldier

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• My God, how badly one calculates in this world! ... Let us leave off calculating on anything but death -- it is the only certainty.

  Eugenie de Guerin

  World, This World, Calculating

  Eugénie de Guérin (1866). “Letters of Eugénie de Guérin”, p.273

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• In moments of spiritual crisis we naturally fall back upon what worked for us, or seemed to work, heretofore. Sometimes this shows up through the reassertion of our old values in belligerent, testy ways. Regression of any kind is just such a return to old presumptions, often after they have been shown to be insufficient for the complexity of larger questions. The virtue of the old presumptions is that they once worked, or seemed to work, and therein lies if not certainty, then nostalgia for a previous, presumptive security. In our private lives, we frequently fall back upon our old roles.

  James Hollis

  Spiritual, Lying, Fall

  James Hollis (2008). “What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life”, p.101, Penguin

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• I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It's always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It's like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn't me? Or is it something else: I'm being very serious now. I'm pontificating earnestly and solemnly about-POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.

  Jeff Bridges

  Real, Pie, Laughing

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• Your one certainty in life, your power as a human being, is that you have a choice in every situation about what you do next and about how you take what has happened to you.

  Ben Whishaw

  Choices, Certainty In Life, Next

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

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• I can say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices: my state Senate seat or for the governor. I'm still trying to decide, but I do think people are ready for a change from the partisan, very fractured leadership we have in Texas.

  Wendy Davis

  Running, Thinking, Texas

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• Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster... Take to the streets, together, with the understanding that the feeling that you aren't being heard or seen or represented isn't psychosis; it's government policy.

  Russell Brand

  Religious, Psychosis, Government

  "Wild emotions are all very well, Russell Brand, but then what?" by Nick Cohen, www.theguardian.com. October 26, 2013.

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• Heaven grants the human being who has learned to live alone a deep measure of such rewards that verily would one hesitate to sacrifice such proved satisfactions, such rare unending possibilities of contentment for anything less than certainty more certain still.

  Cornelia Parker

  Sacrifice, Heaven, Contentment

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• Certainty is the mother of repose, and therefore the common law aims at certainty.

  Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke

  Mother, Law, Common

  "The Dictionary of Legal Quotations". Book by James William Norton-Kyshe, 1904.

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• Warped with satisfactions and terrors, woofed with too many ambiguities and too few certainties, life can be lived best not when we have the answers - because we will never have those - but when we know enough to live it right out to the edges, edges sometimes marked by other people, sometimes showing only our own footprints.

  Rosalie Maggio

  Life, People, Satisfaction

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• CREDIT supposes specific and permanent funds for the punctual payment of interest, with a moral certainty of a final redemption of the principal.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Finals, Credit, Redemption

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1865). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.151

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• God is bigger than time,
  dates, and appointments.
  He wants you to move
  through this day with a quiet heart,
  an inward assurance that
  He is in control, a peaceful certainty
  that your life is in His hands,
  a deep trust in His plan and purposes,
  and a thankful disposition,
  toward all that He allows.
  He wants you to put your faith in Him,
  not in a timetable.
  He wants you to wait on Him
  and wait for Him.
  In His perfect way He will put everything
  together, see to every detail...
  arrange every circumstance...
  and order every step to bring
  to pass what He has for you.

  Roy Lessin

  Life, Trust, God

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• I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Inspirational, Dream, Art

  "Fictional character: Vincent Van Gogh". "Loving Vincent", www.imdb.com. 2017.

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• When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Dream, Joy, Fearless

  Nikos Kazantzakis, Carl Wildman (1953). “Zorba the Greek”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• Certainty is missing the point entirely.

  Anne Lamott

  Missing

  Anne Lamott (2006). “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith”, p.257, Penguin

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• The term ignorant is indeed perhaps an overstatement, implying as it does that something is known somewhere, whereas in reality we are not even sure of this: we in fact cannot aver with any degree of certainty that we are ignorant. Yet this is not so bad; we have at any rate kept our open-mindedness -- that, at least, we may be sure that we have -- and are not in any danger, or so it seems, of freezing into the pious attitudes of those true spiritual bigots whose faces are turned toward eternity and who therefore can see nothing.

  John Ashbery

  Spiritual, Attitude, Reality

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• Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.

  Helen Keller

  Dream, New York, Real

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