With Certainty

Sunday, November 14, 2010 – With Certainty

A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty. ~ Adam Smith

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. ~ Bertrand Russell

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. ~ Voltaire

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

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ~ Vaclav Havel

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

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding. ~ Rem Koolhaas

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. ~ Bertrand Russell

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind. ~ May Sarton

The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. ~ Hannah Arendt

To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education. ~ William Glasser

Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty. ~ Mark Twain

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this our life! ~ George Meredith

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Positiveness is an absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. ~ Laurence Sterne

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~ Albert Einstein

And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human. ~ William Gibson

The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight. ~ Charles Baudelaire

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

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. ~ Michael Crichton

I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure. ~ Mae West

I’m the type who’d be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn’t going to. I’m the type who’d like to sit home and watch every party that I’m invited to on a monitor in my bedroom. ~ Andy Warhol

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. ~ John Steinbeck

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway. ~ Bob Dylan

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination. ~ Charles de Gaulle

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor. ~ E. B. White

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite. ~ Bertrand Russell

There is no certainty; there is only adventure. ~ Roberto Assagioli

When we are not sure, we are alive. ~ Graham Greene

The only certain freedom’s in departure. ~ Robert Frost

There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go. ~ Tennessee Williams