Uncertainty Quotes - Page 14

• It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Rebel, Transition, Chaos

  Brandon Sanderson (2010). “The Well of Ascension: Book Two of Mistborn”, p.378, Macmillan

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• You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Strong, Lying, Believe

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• Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum. We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly. With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears.

  Pema Chodron

  Revenge, Heart, Practice

  Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.8, Shambhala Publications

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• She hesitated, then reached out to Jared in her mind, and uncertainty washed away in the wave of reassurance she got back.

  Sarah Rees Brennan

  Mind, Reassurance, Wave

  Sarah Rees Brennan (2012). “Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy Book 1)”, p.16, Random House Books for Young Readers

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• Uncertainty is the normal state.

  Tom Stoppard

  Normal, Existentialism, States

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• Or maybe you’re merely uncomfortable with uncertainty. Like the rest of the human race.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Race, Uncomfortable, Humans

  Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.129, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Taking ideas seriously does not fit with the rhetorical style of textbooks, which presents events so as to make them seem foreordained along a line of constant progress. Including ideas would make history contingent: things could go either way, and have on occasion. The 'right' people, armed with the 'right' ideas, have not always won. When they didn't, the authors would be in the embarrassing position of having to disapprove of an outcome in the past. Including ideas would introduce uncertainty. This is not textbook style.

  James W. Loewen

  Past, Ideas, People

  James W. Loewen (2013). “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong”, p.203, The New Press

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• When you are in your twenties, even if you're confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense of what life itself is, and of what you in life are, and might become. Later.. later there is more uncertainty, more overlapping, more backtracking, more false memories. Back then, you can remember your short life in its entirety. Later, the memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches.

  Julian Barnes

  Strong, Memories, Confused

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• To try is to invite uncertainty. Where confidence goes, success usually follows.

  Wayne Gerard Trotman

  Positive Attitude, Trying, Invites

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• What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?

  Blaise Pascal

  Truth, Pride, Men

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• Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.

  Brené Brown

  Emotional, Knowing, Risk

  Brené Brown (2012). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead”, p.34, Penguin

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• My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Voice, Fields, Born

  Terry Tempest Williams (2012). “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice”, p.155, Macmillan

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• Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don't feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Life, Past, Insecurity

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• Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.

  Brené Brown

  Emotional, Choices, Risk

  "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead". Book by Brené Brown, September 11, 2012.

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• There is a stark difference between fear and uncertainty, Sarai. You fear nothing but are uncertain of everything.

  J.A. Redmerski

  Differences, Uncertain, Fear Nothing

  J. A. Redmerski (2013). “Killing Sarai”, p.111, J.A. Redmerski

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• I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.

  Brené Brown

  Emotional, Thinking, Safety

  Brené Brown (2012). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead”, p.37, Penguin

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• Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.

  Marie Lu

  Distance, Feet, Three

  Marie Lu (2013). “Champion: A Legend Novel”, p.39, Penguin

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• The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

  Seneca the Younger

  Letting Go, Time, Future

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• There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change.

  John F. Kennedy

  Life, Change, Unchanging

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• It is not how much you know about life but how you live your life that counts. Those who can avoid mistakes by observing the mistakes of others are most apt to keep free from sorrow. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before-human experience-is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know.

  Ray Lyman Wilbur

  Life, Mistake, Sorrow

  Ray Lyman Wilbur (1940). “Human Hopes: Addresses & Papers on Education, Citizenship, & Social Porblems”

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• If we are too busy, if we are carried away every day by our projects, our uncertainty, our craving, how can we have the time to stop and look deeply into the situation-our own situation, the situation of our beloved one, the situation of our family and of our community, and the situation of our nation and of the other nations?

  Nhat Hanh

  Family, Community, Looks

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2003). “Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World”, p.196, Simon and Schuster

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• To be patriotic is to be able to question government policy in times of crisis. To be patriotic is to stand up for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in times of uncertainty and insecurity. To be patriotic is to speak up against the powerful in defense of the weak and the voiceless. To be patriotic is to be willing to pay the price to preserve our freedoms, dignity, and rights. To be patriotic is to challenge the abuses of the PATRIOT Act.

  Sami Al-Arian

  Freedom, Powerful, Patriotic

  "Dr. Sami Al-Arian vs Big Brother's 'Ministry of Justice'" by Eileen Fleming, bigthink.com. 2017.

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• Love has a particular trait: far from being indulgent or fickle, it has a task or purpose to fulfil: to abide. By its nature love is enduring. Again, dear friends, we catch a further glimpse of how much the Holy Spirit offers our world: love which dispels uncertainty; love which overcomes the fear of betrayal; love which carries eternity within; the true love which draws us into a unity that abides!

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Life, Betrayal, Love Is

  Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Vigil with The Young People, w2.vatican.va. July 19, 2008.

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• In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Cutting, Men

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.363, Penguin

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• This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, we cannot retreat from it anymore.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Attitude, Mind, Religion

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.286, Princeton University Press

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