Probability Quotes - Page 4

• We can say with certainty - or 90% probability - that the new industries that are about to be born will have nothing to do with information.

  Peter Drucker

  Information, Economy, Born

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• It doesn't matter what your probability of failure is. If there's a 90% chance of failure, there's a 10% chance of changing the world.

  Vinod Khosla

  World, Matter, Chance

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• A reasonable scale of probability-what is likely-forbids believing a whole range of imaginative possibilities, even though we do not know anything for sure.

  Jennifer Michael Hecht

  Believe, Possibility, Range

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• Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

  George Eliot

  Fear, Stronger, Calculations

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.450, Penguin

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• The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform. It is true, that no diligence can ascertain success; death may intercept the swiftest career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honest undertaking has at least the honour of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed the victory.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fall, Procrastination, Cutting

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.101

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• To be a super-trader, you'll need an edge to overcome the laws of probability and the uncertainty of the marketplace. That edge comes from information flow, the ability to correct your habits in terms of the market's characteristics, and being able to take risks, cut losses, expand your information network, ferret out ideas, and take recommendations.

  Ari Kiev

  Cutting, Loss, Information Flow

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• Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.

  Ronald Fisher

  Math, Degrees, Statistics

  "Evolution in Action". Book by Julian S. Huxley, 1953.

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• The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which of times they are unable to account.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Probability Theory, Appreciate

  "Théorie Analytique Des Probabilités". Book by Pierre-Simon Laplace, second edition, 1814.

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• Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero.

  David R. Ellis

  Zero, Law, Damn

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

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• Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities- that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Block, Illustration, Class

  Tales of Mystery and Imagination The Murders in the Rue Morgue (p. 208)

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• The engine driving the Kelly system is the "law of large numbers." In a 1713 treatise on probability, Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli propounded a law that has been misunderstood by gamblers (and investors) ever since.

  William Poundstone

  Law, Numbers, Misunderstood

  William Poundstone (2010). “Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street”, p.102, Macmillan

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• When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Miracle, Biographies

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• The true Logic for this world is the Calculus of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, World, Logic

  "The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862".

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• The Law of Probabilities: the more things you try, the more likely one of them will work.

  Jack Canfield

  Law, Trying, Experiments

  Jack Canfield, Marci Shimoff, Janet Bray Attwood, Chris Attwood (2012). “Pearls of Wisdom: 30 Inspirational Ideas to Live Your Best Life Now!”, p.7, Hierophant Publishing

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• The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.

  Hannah Arendt

  Odds, Law, Miracle

  Hannah Arendt (2013). “The Human Condition: Second Edition”, p.178, University of Chicago Press

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• Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.

  Hans Jonas

  Life, Nature, Men

  Hans Jonas, Lawrence Vogel (1996). “Mortality and Morality: A Search for Good After Auschwitz”, p.157, Northwestern University Press

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• It is the concept of likelihood that a real understanding of probability resides, and we must learn how to measure it.

  Anthony Stafford Beer

  Real, Understanding, Likelihood

  "Management Science" by Anthony Stafford Beer, (p. 41), 1968.

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• Almost all life depends on probabilities.

  Voltaire

  Gambling, Depends

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• The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.

  Lewis Thomas

  Cells, Diversity, Lightning

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.

  Ashley Montagu

  Believe, Science, Degrees

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• Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Wisdom, Appreciation, Common Sense

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• Is it 10 years, 20, 50 before we reach that tipping point where climate change becomes irreversible? Nobody can know. There's clearly a probability distribution. We need to ensure this planet, and we need to do it quickly.

  Vinod Khosla

  Years, Climate, Needs

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• Psychology helps to measure the probability that an aim is attainable.

  Edward Thorndike

  Psychology, Helping, Aim

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• With caution judge of probability. Things deemed unlikely, e'en impossible, experience oft hath proved to be true.

  William Shakespeare

  Wisdom, Judging, Impossible

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• He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain.

  Voltaire

  Strong, Eye, Math

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