Uncertainty Quotes - Page 18

• At times it may seem worse - harder, at least - to live through the despair of this loss without the temporary comfort of our addictive behaviour. We cannot drown our sorrows. We must face the fact that we don’t know, really, where we are, how we got here, how long the pain will last, or how to move past it. That uncertainty may be the most painful part of not knowing a God: no one is there to reassure us that a God will take the pain and confusion away. We simply don’t know. And we have no way to numb ourselves or to forget the condition we’re in.

  Marya Hornbacher

  Pain, Moving, Loss

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• Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters cooperation, not the opposite.

  Philip K. Howard

  Law, Opposites, Ideas

  Philip K. Howard (2011). “The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America”, p.183, Random House

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• Nothing is more certain than uncertainties: / Fortune is full of fresh variety; / Constant in nothing but inconstancy.

  Richard Barnfield

  Fortune, Certain, Constant

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• To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Thinking, Hands

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.97, Stanford University Press

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• You see, in sports you have so many things that aren't expected. There's so much uncertainty. So when players find themselves in a situation where management has a great deal of integrity and they can depend on my word or anybody else's word in the organization, they feel secure. And if the players feel secure, they don't want to leave here. And if they don't want to leave here, they're going to do everything they can on the court to stay here.

  Red Auerbach

  Sports, Integrity, Player

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• Uncertainty and danger are always closely allied, thus making any kind of an unknown world a world of peril and evil possibilities.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Unknown Worlds, Evil, Kind

  H. P. Lovecraft (2016). “H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ Ultimate Collection: 120+ Works ALL in One Volume: Complete Novellas & Short Stories, Juvenilia, Poetry, Essays & Collaborations: The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Out of Time, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, Dagon, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Outsider, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Cats of Ultharäó_”, p.1417, e-artnow

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• Standing alone,eager to just believe,it's good enough to be what you really are,but in your heart,uncertainty forever lies,and you'll always be,somewhere on the outside.

  Mariah Carey

  Lying, Believe, Heart

  Song: Outside, Album: Butterfly, 1997

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• Often, very often, I am alone. My studio in Amsterdam, (Beckmann lived in the center of Amsterdam during World War 2.) an enormous old tobacco storeroom is again filled in my imagination with figures from the old days and from the new, like an ocean moved by storm and sun and always present in my thoughts. Then shapes become beings and seem comprehensible to me in the great void and uncertainty of the space which I call god.

  Max Beckmann

  War, Ocean, Space

  "On my painting". Max Beckmann's Speech during the exhibition 'Twentieth-Century German Art', London, July 21, 1938.

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• Where is the world whose people don't prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty.

  Isaac Asimov

  Wind, People, World

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation and Earth”, p.130, Spectra

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• Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy.

  Plutarch

  Men, Thinking, Reflection

  Plutarch (2012). “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete”, p.371, Simon and Schuster

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• Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Lying, Intellectual, Quests

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.30, Vintage

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• Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.

  Robert Jordan

  Struggle, Choices, Made

  Robert Jordan (2010). “The Shadow Rising: Book Four of 'The Wheel of Time'”, p.362, Tor Books

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• My religious training told me that in times of personal uncertainty one should seek God's direction through personal prayer and study of the Christian scriptures.

  Preston Manning

  Christian, Religious, Prayer

  "The New Canada". Book by Preston Manning, 1992.

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• If there were a generic one-word expression for 'one whose fear of the uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of victory', it would be 'Republican'.

  L. Neil Smith

  Moving, Expression, Victory

  "Some New Tactical Reflections". The Libertarian Enterprise, www.ncc-1776.org. January 15, 1998.

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• With uncertainty in oil markets, a buildup of speculative pressures and the large U.S. current account deficit, there is a real possibility that Paulson's crisis-management skills will be tested.

  Lawrence Summers

  Real, Oil, Management Skills

  "Watching the Yellow Flags" by David Ignatius, www.washingtonpost.com. May 31, 2006.

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• The only uncertainty surrounding the decision is the wording of the accompanying statement and, in particular, whether the assessment that 'some further policy firming may be needed to keep the risks ... roughly in balance' will be dropped.

  Paul Ashworth

  Assessment, Decision, Risk

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• But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.

  Pope Pius X

  Clever, Teaching, Reality

  Pope Pius X's Encyclical letter "Pascendi dominici gregis", w2.vatican.va. September 8,1907.

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• Every patient reacts a little differently, both biologically and psychologically. The only constant in cancer is inconstancy; the only certainty is a future of uncertainty, a truism for all of modern life but one made vivid by life-threatening illness.

  Jonathan Alter

  Cancer, Modern Life, Littles

  Jonathan Alter (2008). “Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People, and Culture”

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• Marriages are always moving from one season to another. Sometimes we find ourselves in winter--discouraged, detached, and dissatisfied; other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summer--comfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature.

  Gary Chapman

  Summer, Moving, Fall

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• The model of competitive equilibrium which has been discussed so far is set in a timeless environment. People and companies all operate in a world in which there is no future and hence no uncertainty.

  Paul Ormerod

  People, World, Environment

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it.

  Romeo LeBlanc

  Character, Weapons, Save A Life

  Speech on the occasion of the presentation of the insignia of the Order of Military Merit, February 05, 1997.

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• I am an artist, I trade in uncertainty and superstition and cant. I invent dark visions of impossible situations that can never be resolved.

  Ralph Steadman

  Dark, Artist, Impossible Situations

  "The Joke's Over". Book by Ralph Steadman, 2006.

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• How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

  Jack Vance

  Real, Ease, Orthodoxy

  Jack Vance (2007). “The Jack Vance Treasury”, Subterranean

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• Many things are linked to being able to live with uncertainty, ...with paradoxes. But this can be a strength of an organisation and a situation.

  John Elkann

  Able, Paradox, Situation

  "Unlikely heir who saved the family jewels". Financial Times, Marh 06, 2011.

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• Whatever may be the distribution of uncertainty among economists, the public only gets to hear from those who have certain opinions.

  Herbert Stein

  May, Opinion, Certain

  1979 Washington Bedtime Stories.

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