#certainty

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it. ↗

— Tom Stoppard

#brought #certainty #desired #joy #may

From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts. ↗

— Tom Stoppard

#derived #facts #obtained #only #principles

It is to be feared that those who emigrate to New South Wales, generally anticipate too great facility in their future operations and certainty of success in conducting them; but they should recollect that competency cannot be obtained without labour. ↗

— Charles Sturt

#cannot #certainty #conducting #emigrate #facility

Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions. ↗

— Thomas Szasz

#certainty #claims #convictions #doubt #fears

Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about. ↗

— Wislawa Szymborska

#born #bus #certainty #crowds #four

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.) ↗

— Blaise Pascal

#quip #risk #uncertainty #risk

Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#uncertainty #sisters

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you. ↗

— Mark Helprin

#science #uncertainty #science

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun. ↗

— Sherwood Anderson

#future #ghosts #life #manhood #nothingness

If and perhaps.... The language of procrastination and uncertainty. That's just people looking to justify their own lack of action. ↗

— John Flanagan

#uncertainty #uncertainty