Uncertain Quotes - Page 8

• May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Heart, Dark, Years

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• The Holy Ghost is not a Sceptic, and He has not inscribed in our hearts uncertain opinions, but, rather, affirmations of the strongest sorts.

  Martin Luther

  Heart, Opinion, Affirmation

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• Who has not wished that his host would come out frankly at the beginning of the visit and state, in no uncertain terms, the rulesand preferences of the household in such matters as the breakfast hour? And who has not sounded out his guest to find out what he likes in the regulation of his diet and modus vivendi (mode of living)?

  Robert Benchley

  Breakfast, Guests, Regulation

  Robert Benchley (1925). “Of All Things”

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• Creative Endeavors are by their nature uncertain.

  Robert Greene

  Creative, Endeavor

  Twitter post from Oct 03, 2014

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• I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.

  Claude Bernard

  Believe, Science, Men

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• Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units.

  Carl Jung

  Fall, Justice, Police

  Carl Gustav Jung (1964). “Civilization in transition”

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• Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether economic, ecological, or political - but it's insufficient for uncertain times. How can we live within our means when those very means can change, swiftly and unexpectedly, beneath us?

  Jamais Cascio

  Mean, Goal, Political

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• Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.

  Mary McCarthy

  Variation, Morality, Wells

  Mary McCarthy (2013). “The Oasis: A Novel”, p.93, Melville House

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• Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).

  Mark Twain

  Men, Might, Malicious

  Mark Twain (194?). “Mark Twain's notebook”

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• In your works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.

  Wassily Kandinsky

  Independent, Destiny, Voice

  "Schonberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter" by Klaus Kropfinger, edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), (p. 9), 2003.

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• And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained withMy yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today doesn't matter.

  Lisa Genova

  Mean, Yesterday, Live In The Moment

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• It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Expectations, Would Be, Weight

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.133, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• there is nothing so uncertain and slippery as fact.

  Sara Coleridge

  Facts, Slippery

  Sara Coleridge Coleridge (1873). “Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge”, p.190

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• I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life - past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from which it came; it is to understand that the stream of life, flowing out of the dim past into the uncertain future, is in reality a unified force, though composed of an infinite number and variety of separate lives.

  Rachel Carson

  Past, Reality, Numbers

  Preface to "Humane Biology Projects" by the Animal Welfare Institute, 1961.

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• Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear, undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light, and serenity.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Peace, Light, Voice

  Entry for April 06, 1851, "The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel", Book by Henri-Frédéric Amiel, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, 1882.

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• Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Views, Speech

  Bertrand Russell (1972). “Atheism: collected essays, 1943-1949”, Arno Pr

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• Lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving than for its always shaving the right person.

  Charles Dickens

  Law, Knowing, Shaving

  Charles Dickens (1848). “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc”, p.168

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• Though most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendships; yet a man may make use of them on occasion, as of a traffic whose returns are uncertain, and in which 'tis usual to be cheated.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Friendship, Men, Names

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• I really have branched out into areas where I'm totally uncertain, which is very exciting for me. I kind of like not knowing what I'm doing.

  Shary Boyle

  Knowing, Kind, Exciting

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• Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.

  John Selden

  Law, Feet, Long

  "Table Talk: Being the Discourses of John Selden (Equity)". Book by John Selden and Richard Milward, 1689.

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• Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them - the one, in fact, which is not a mask.

  W. H. Auden

  Finding The One, People, Trying

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("One of the Family"), (p. 369), 1973.

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• I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.

  Charles de Lint

  Attitude, Writing, Character

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• To no circumstance is the wide diffusion of error in the world more owing than to our habit of adopting conclusions from insufficiently established data. An indispensable preliminary, then, in every investigation, is to get at facts. Until these are arrived at, every opinion, theory, or system, however ingeniously framed, must necessarily rest upon an uncertain basis.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Errors, Data, World

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• Problems are often stated in vague terms... because it is quite uncertain what the problems really are.

  John von Neumann

  Problem, Term, Vague

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• I do not know that there is a more certain sound than Senator Kennedy. I cannot imagine a more uncertain sound than Senator Kerry.

  Gordon Smith

  Sound, Imagine, Senators

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