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Certainty Quotes


"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."


"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."


"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."


"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world."


"The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding."


"I have moved from certainty to doubt, from devotion to rebellion."


"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."


"It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all."


"Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so."


"Step by step a powerful and enterprising race has driven them back from the Atlantic to the West until at last there is scarcely a spot of ground upon which the Indians have any certainty of maintaining a permanent abode."


"Could we have prevented in 100% certainty? I don't think anything is that certain. However, we would have had a very, very good chance for preventing it."


"The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind."


"That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise."


"If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach."


"Many slaves on this continent are oppressed, and their cries have reached the ears of the Most High. Such are the purity and certainty of his judgments, that he cannot be partial in our favor."


"In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain."


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


"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."


"You can safely appeal to the United Nations in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down."


"We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface."


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


"When we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty."


"When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges."


"A bird in hand is a certainty. But a bird in the bush may sing."


"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."


"One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO."


"No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty."
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