Certitude Quotes

• Certitude is not the test of certainty.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Learning, Tests, Certainty

  Harvard Law Review Natural Law Volume 32, Number 1, November 1918 (p. 40)

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• The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude

  Peter L. Berger

  People, Lines, Today

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• My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Believe, Thinking

  Robert Anton Wilson (1977). “Cosmic trigger: final secret of the illuminati”, New Falcon Pubns

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• Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

  William James

  Dream, Science, Play

  "The Will to Believe" (1896)

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• On the other hand, for the whole human being who wills, feels, and represents, external reality is given simultaneously and with as much certitude as his own self.

  Wilhelm Dilthey

  Reality, Self, Hands

  Wilhelm Dilthey, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Frithjof Rodi (1991). “Introduction to the Human Sciences”, p.51, Princeton University Press

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• Certitude leads to violence. This is a proposition that has an easy application and a difficult one. The easy application is to ideoologues, dogmatists, and bullies--people who think that their rigtness justifies them in imposing on anyone who does not happen to suscribe to their particular ideology, dogma or notion of turf. If the conviction of rightness is powerful enough, resistance to it will be met, sooner or later by force. There are people like this in every sphere of life, and it is natural to feel that the world would be a better place without them!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Powerful, Thinking, People

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• Certitude is seized by some minds, not because there is any philosophical justification for it, but because such minds have an emotional need for certitude.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Philosophical, Emotional, Mind

  Robert Anton Wilson (1987). “The new inquisition: irrational rationalism and the citadel of science”

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• I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.

  Max Born

  Believe, Thinking, Blessing

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• An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.

  Jon Meacham

  Rejection, Mind, Liberty

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• Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Looks, Encyclopedia

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• It is not doubt,is certitude that drives you mad.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Mad, Doubt

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• A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

  Andre Gide

  Honesty, Mean, Desire

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• The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Courage, Risk, Suffering

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• Idiot. Above her head was the only stable point in the cosmos, the only refuge from the damnation of the panta rei, and she guessed it was the Pendulum's business. A moment later the couple went off -- he, trained on some textbook that had blunted his capacity for wonder, she, inert and insensitive to the thrill of the infinite, both oblivious of the awesomeness of their encounter -- their first and last encounter -- with the One, the Ein-Sof, the Ineffable. How could you fail to kneel down before this altar of certitude?

  Umberto Eco

  Couple, Encounters, Damnation

  "Foucault's Pendulum". Book by Umberto Eco, 2007.

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• Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

  Matthew Arnold

  Life, Beautiful, Dream

  "Dover Beach" l. 35 (1867)

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• Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Philosophy, Real, Ignorance

  "The Ethics of Ambiguity". Book by Simone de Beauvoir. Conclusion, 1947.

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• Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Attitude, Reality, Tunnels

  Robert Anton Wilson (1977). “Cosmic trigger: final secret of the illuminati”, New Falcon Pubns

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• I think most of us become nicer as we get older, less judgmental, less full of certitude; life tends to knock a few corners of us as we go through. Cancer, divorce, teenagers, and other plagues make us give up on expecting ourselves - or life - to be perfect, which is a real relief.

  Molly Ivins

  Giving Up, Real, Cancer

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• I don't like quintessential certitude.

  Louise Bogan

  Certain, Quintessential

  Louise Bogan (1973). “What the woman lived: selected letters of Louise Bogan, 1920-1970”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we create

  Bruce Lee

  Standing Alone

  Bruce Lee (2015). “Bruce Lee: Artist of Life”, p.240, Tuttle Publishing

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• The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth

  Eric Hoffer

  Effectiveness, Profound, Sublime

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Securities, certitudes and peace do not lead to discoveries.

  Carl Jung

  Discovery, Security

  Carl Gustav Jung, Herbert Read, Gerhard Adler, Michael Scott Montague Fordham (1973). “The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Psychology and religion, West and East”

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• Mature psychological health cannot exist unless we are capable of doubting any form of conceptual certitude about ourselves or anything else.

  Richard Moss

  Psychological Health, Doubt, Mature

  Richard Moss, MD (2010). “The Mandala of Being: Discovering the Power of Awareness”, p.280, New World Library

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• Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.

  Jean Vanier

  Peace, Hurt, Pain

  Jean Vanier (2003). “Finding Peace”, p.44, A&C Black

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• THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Religion, Mystery, Ancient

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.220, 谷月社

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