Certainty Quotes - Page 2

If imagination is what enables us to conceive of and enjoy stories other than our own, and if empathy is the act of taking other people’s stories seriously, certainty deadens or destroys both qualities. When we are caught up in our own convictions, other people’s stories—which is to say, other people—cease to matter to us.

I'm comfortable with the unknown -- that's the point of science. There are places out there, billions of places out there, that we know nothing about. And the fact that we know nothing about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about them.And that's what science is.So I think if you’re not comfortable with the unknown, then it’s difficult to be a scientist… I don’t need an answer. I don’t need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.

It sometimes requires ignorance and arrogance to know something for sure.

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's already there.

A certain bygone philosophy-which certainly must have quite forgotten all about the real child-used to speak of the child's nature as a tabula rasa, or 'blank page,' upon which experience and training might write what they pleased. As a matter of fact, the child's nature at birth, like that of a calf or a chick, is pretty well scribbled over by the experience of its ancestors. It is far from being blank, for as soon as the little organism comes into the world, it begins to do certain things and do them with much zeal and determination, as every one knows who knows real children.

A prophet is always underestimated, and part of what makes one a prophet is that he doesn't really mind it.

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.

He who asserts belief with absolute certainty knows nothing of faith and makes himself into a fool. He who is wise, upon realizing they have done this, recants and searches themselves for further enlightenment.

All life is preoccupied with death. Death is the only certain future. Yet in the face of reason, everyone holds out hope for the highly improbable.

I know with unqualified certainty that I want to die. But I also know with equivalent certainty that I won't do anything about it. That I will only remain here and wait for death to indulge me.

Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.

If the opposite of certainty is doubt, humility must lie somewhere between the two,

Naturally, I always place my word over anyone else's simply because I know why I said what I said.

The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof.

I mean that if you are not absolutely sure of a thing, it is so difficult to commit yourself to a definite course of action.

...but the loss of a memory, like the omission of a phrase during reading, rather than making for uncertainty, can lead to a premature certainty.

If anyone doesn't agree with you, the truth is on your side.

A sensible man may fear certain possibilities, but don’t let fear turn possibility into certainty.

Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.

Through positive thinking and related approaches, we seek the safety and solid ground of certainty, of knowing how the future will turn out, of a time in the future when we'll be ceaselessly happy and never have to fear negative emotions again. But in chasing all that, we close down the very faculties that permit the happiness we crave.

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.

Certainty. Life's last and kindest gift.

...the morning with the whole day waiting,full of promise,the nightof quiet, of no expectations, of rest.And the certainty of home, the one I live in,and the onethat lives in me.

Beauty is an advantage, smile is guarantee.

The secret of the whole matter is that a habit is not the mere tendency to repeat a certain act, nor is it established by the mere repetition of the act. Habit is a fixed tendency to react or respond in a certain way to a given stimulus; and the formation of habit always involves the two elements, the stimulus and the response or reaction. The indolent lad goes to school not in response to any stimulus in the school itself, but to the pressure of his father's will; when that stimulus is absent, the reaction as a matter of course does not occur.

An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.

The future is certain. It is just not known.

A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.

I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.

Always doubtful is the one who always looks for certainty.

It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.

Such is true joy’s absolute certainty,Its slow lit fuse that burns holesIn the shabby shroud of death forever.

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.

He felt that he was still groping in the dark; he had chosen his path but kept looking back, wondering whether he had misread the signs, whether he should not have taken the other way.

Others may not understand your joy and contentment because of your certainty about who you are and why you exist. Don't waste your time to explain.

Certainty is the most vivid condition of ignorance and the most necessarycondition for knowledge.

It is not always necessary to search for the cause behind everything, because every cause is unfounded. A cause only looks like a cause from a certain viewpoint.

My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers—even the answers they themselves believed. I don’t know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being “politically conscious”—as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.

A certain way to have financial security in life is not enough savings, but enough ability.

It must be an odd person indeed that can say for certain they are normal.

How do you ever hold on to anybody?

If they're friends, then they've got your back . . . whether you're there or not. Friends won't "forget" about you.

[I]t would be a niceness that was enforced leniently, patiently and gracefully, with the sort of unflappable self-certainty [they] couldn't help displaying when all its statistics proved that it really was doing the right thing.

I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.

when the uncertainty is known, certainty is guaranteed. Until we unravel the uncertainties of our lives, we shall always be uncertain with the life we live

At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.

Every great dream, meet an opposing views.The certainty within our spirit made the dream reality.

I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remember best of all, though, was the sudden certainty that the gods were with me, that they would fight for me, that my sword would be their sword. ‘We’re going to win,’ I told my son. I felt as if Odin or Thor had touched me. I had never felt more alive and never felt more certain. I knew there would be no more mistakes and that this was no dream.I had come to Bebbanburg and Bebbanburg would be mine.

Success comes not from having certainty, but being able to live with uncertainty.

Things happen, and nothing is for sure, but you just have to keep going, believing that one day, you'll find something that is.

...Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was...

Roark spoke quietly. He was the only man in the room who felt certain of his own words.

So the paradox goes: No man who is really ignorant is ever aware that he is ignorant. That is its finest, most faulty manifestation; there can be no true ignorance without first some claim of intelligence or consciousness, or superiority or enlightenment.

I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.

I'm a girl."When Deryn opened her eyes, the lady boffin was staring at her with no change of expression. "Indeed," she

Doubter wants proof which contributes nothing to her faith.

The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.