#probability

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters. ↗

— John Major

#clever #could #defect #half #many

I don't believe in providence and fate, as a technologist I am used to reckoning with the formulae of probability. ↗

— Max Frisch

#believe #fate #formulae #i #i am

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#being #contented #existing #fact #here

The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#agency #any #connected #dangerous #entrusted

The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#astonishing #bolt #cell #cooled #derived

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#essence #improbability #life #scale #statistical

Life is a school of probability. ↗

— Walter Bagehot

#life is a #probability #school

It's not about the pace, it's about the direction we've set. The pace is of course a function of many factors, including the magnitude of the supply shock. But what's probably more important is the probability of the supply shock translating into sustainable embedded inflation. ↗

— Marek Belka

#course #direction #embedded #factors #function

The more connected that individual is to an issue they care about, the higher probability there is they will stay involved over a longer period of time. ↗

— Chris Hughes

#care #connected #higher #individual #involved

He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I here? Why am I here? After a moment's thought, he decided he better change it to: why are we here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish. ↗

— James Jones

#bell #death #fear #geometry #machine-guns