#certainty

If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#dogmatism #life #life

To seek Truth is automatically a calling for the innate dissident and the subversive; how many are willing to give up safety and security for the perilous life of the spiritual revolutionary? How many are willing to truly learn that their own cherished concepts are wrong? Striking provocative or mysterious poses in the safety of Internet [social media] is far easier than taking the risks involved in the hard work of genuine initiation. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#dissidents #outcasts #revolutionary-spirit #self-examination #spiritual-transformation

What makes us leave what we love best? What is it inside us that keeps erasing itself When we need it most, That sends us into uncertainty for its own sake And holds us flush there until we begin to love it And have to begin again? What is it within our own lives we decline to live Whenever we find it, making our days unendurable, And nights almost visionless? I still don't know yet, but I do it. ↗

— Charles Wright

#living #love #poem #poetry #self

And of course I didn't know who would marry me now that I'd been where I had been. I didn't know at all. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

#uncertainty #marriage

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ↗

— Charles Darwin

#ignorance #knowledge #open-mindedness #science #willful-ignorance

Uncertainty is caused by a lack of knowledge. Hesitation is the product of fear. ↗

— Internet Archive

#uncertainty #internet

Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#assistance #bupropion #depression #future #happiness

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image. ↗

— Timothy Garton Ash

#certainty #days #direct #few #however

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things. ↗

— Denis Diderot

#certainty #confuse #different #different things #entirely

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

#born #certainty #industries #information #new