Uncertainty Quotes - Page 6

• My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man That function is smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Lady Macbeth, Murder

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 1, sc. 3, l. 130

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• The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Long, Leader

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• Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

  Aesop

  Fear, Poverty, Midst

  Aesop (2014). “The Aesop for Children”, p.28, First Avenue Editions

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• Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of security....The new security will be a belief that ...if this doesn't work out you could do something else. You are your own security.

  Charles Handy

  Islands, Work Out, Trying

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• We know that uncertainty creates anxiety and sometimes desperate attempts to find something to believe in. Uncertainty engenders real opportunity as well as misleading choices, great leaders as well as false messiahs, and new ways of understanding the world alongside hollow maxims and deceptive promises. Understandably, we seek guides and guideposts to ease the anxiety of the journey. But we also need to depend on our own insights and imagination to cultivate, from our own experience, a way to move forward.

  Alan Briskin

  Real, Moving Forward, Believe

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• If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if it's done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

  Douglas Adams

  Hurt, Cutting, Space

  Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.

  Bernard Beckett

  Fear, Optimistic, Years

  "Genesis". Book by Bernard Beckett, www.npr.org. 2010.

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• Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell?

  Dale Carnegie

  Men, Years, Law

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• This is what I call understanding. If you understand, insecurity is an intrinsic part of life - and good that it is so, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. One never knows what is going to happen. It keeps you continuously in wonder. Don't call it uncertainty - call it wonder. Don't call it insecurity - call it freedom.

  Rajneesh

  Life, Understanding, Insecurity

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• In moments of uncertainty, when you must chose between two paths, allowing yourself to be overcome by either the fear of failure or the dimly lit light of possibility, immerse yourself in the life you would be most proud to live.

  Adam Braun

  Two, Light, Path

  Adam Braun (2015). “The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

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• Cast between the extremes of happiness and misfortune, uncertainty is a cruel torment.

  Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

  Casts, Torment, Extremes

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• It is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.

  Colin Powell

  Leadership, Jobs, Engagement

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• His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.

  Victor Hugo

  Fog, Two, Whole Life

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.2957, Delphi Classics

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• Photography was not invented to serve a clearly understood function. There was in fact widespread uncertainty, even among its inventors, as to what it might be good for.

  John Szarkowski

  Photography, Might, Facts

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• My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'

  Claude Shannon

  Names, Ideas, Two

  "Scientific American", Vol. 225, (p. 180), 1971.

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• Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

  Leo Rosten

  Pain, Differences, Purpose

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• The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

  Alain de Botton

  Play, Judgement, Identity

  Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.8, Vintage

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• We got a malaria initiative, really a phenomenal time, even though in the early stages there was some uncertainty. Then of course [Barack] Obama, although he had budget constraints, he believed in these things; a lot of new initiatives, including in agriculture.

  Bill Gates

  Agriculture, Malaria, Initiative

  Source: www.geekwire.com

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• A sense of uncertainty that is potentially fatal is what makes climbing an adventure. Anything less is just working out

  Jim Bridwell

  Adventure, Climbing, Work Out

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• This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.

  George W. Bush

  Humor, Loss, Dangerous World

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

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• The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

  Terry Pratchett

  Balance, Four, Persuasion

  "The Light Fantastic". Book by Terry Pratchett, 1986.

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• A state of expectancy is a great assetl; a state of uncertainty-one moment thinking "perhaps" and the next moment thinking "I don't know"-will never get desired results.

  Ernest Holmes

  Change, Thinking, Next

  Ernest Holmes, Michael Beckwith (2010). “How to Change Your Life: An Inspirational, Life-Changing Classic from the Ernest Holmes Library”, p.15, Health Communications, Inc.

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• Americans love their captivity. There's no responsibility. When you're a captive, you don't have to make a decision about anything, though you have no Liberty. People don't want Liberty. Liberty is nothing but uncertainty. It's much easier to have someone tell you where you'll be, what you'll do and who you'll pay tomorrow than to worry about it yourself. The same goes for what you think

  Eustace Mullins

  Freedom, Responsibility, Thinking

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• If you don't think you want to go on a train and read the paper every day and work from nine to six at night, there was something about the uncertainty when I was younger which was very attractive

  Ron Silver

  Thinking, Night, Six

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• If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

  Blaise Pascal

  Journey, Sea, Battle

  Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters and Minor Works”, p.87, Cosimo, Inc.

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