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Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.
Ashley MontaguWhile the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.
Bertrand RussellThere's one thing that always interests me about you good people, not your certainty that the rest of us are swine, - no doubt we are, - but your certainty that your opinions are pearls.
Margaret DelandOne very important difference between color and monochromatic photography is this: in black and white you suggest; in color you state. Much can be implied by suggestion, but statement demands certainty... absolute certainty.
Paul OuterbridgeAbsolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny usually looks upon our most strident convictions with amusement, or perhaps even pity.
Elizabeth GilbertMaking no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
Sun TzuThe American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.
John McCainNow it is firstly a matter of a clean divorce, because citizens and companies need legal certainty. Can there be a new partnership with the United Kingdom one day? All 27 Member States would have to agree to that. And the United Kingdom would first have to reflect on what it wants itself.
Jean-Claude JunckerDoubt is nothing but a trivial agitation on the surface of the soul, while deep down there is a calm certainty.
Francois MauriacI have made a long enough descent into the void to speak with certainty. There is nothing but beauty--and beauty has only one perfect expression, Poetry. All the rest is a lie.
Stephane MallarmeShe loved Bram in a clear-eyed way sheโd never loved her ex-husband, no rose-colored glasses or mindless giddiness, no Cinderella fantasies or false certainty that heโd put her life in order. What she felt for Bram was messy, honest, and soul-deep. He felt likeโฆpart of her, the best and the worst. Like someone she wanted to struggle through life with; share triumphs and catastrophes; share holidays, birthdays, every days
Susan Elizabeth PhillipsIf art made you think, then this was Art. Staring at the ball, made of layers and layers of cloth, I wondered about the glass marble at its heart. What if you wanted to reach that marble? Make sure it was still whole? You'd have to remove the layers. You'd have to risk breaking the ball for a chance at freeing it. Fear, knowledge, certainty - you'd have to be willing to let them all go.
Justina ChenFor investor confidence, it is important that there is certainty about the future of Ireland in E.U.
Jose Manuel BarrosoThat would be the death of anyone - to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn't know that. If it is offered, refuse!
Jesse BallThe afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
Simone WeilThe search for the lessons of the new science is still in progress, really in its infancy. In this realm, three is a new kind of freedom, where it is more rewarding to explore than to reach conclusions, more satisfying to wonder than to know, and more exciting to search than to stay put. Curiosity, not certainty, becomes the saving grace.
Margaret J. WheatleyThis very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.
Albert CamusThe abuse of the veto power has become so predictable that frequently resolutions are not even tabled because of the certainty of a veto against their adoption. Necessary discussion is thereby suppressed. Concerted action by the Security Council, the General Assembly and other United Nations agencies is necessary to prevent major human rights violations, stop ongoing breaches and provide remedies to victims.
Alfred-Maurice de ZayasDogmatism 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 RussellBut no one can predict of a certainty what will happen. And none of it will change how I intend to spend the rest of my life. I will live it on my terms. And you... you can have all of me or nothing. I won't be an invalid any longer. Not even if it means losing you.
Lisa KleypasNever thought I'd see the day when Death was denied. That leaves taxes as the only certainty.
Piers Anthony... the body, normally, is never in question: our bodies are beyond question, or perhaps beneath question - they are simply, unquestionably, there. This unquestionability of the body, is, for Wittgenstein, the start and basis of all knowledge and certainty.
Oliver SacksWe are talking about capital-intensive enterprises, so market certainty is the key. Investors and entrepreneurs have to know that there will be a guaranteed U.S. renewable energy market in which they can compete. Otherwise, they will create the next generation of green companies and green jobs in Asia, not here.
Van JonesThe underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us.
Barack ObamaWhat I envy most about you and everyone else heading back to school is the certainty of it all. Youโve got a prescribed set of requirements to guide you through the next few years. Focus your energy on the completion of those assignments and youโll succeed. Guaranteed. Whereโs my syllabus to guide me through life?
Megan McCaffertyRecalling the aftermath of her father's death from alcoholism at age 42, this memoirist reminisces: I couldn't deny that our life was so much better now, but I did miss him. For all the misery he caused, I knew with certainty that he loved us. Those aren't things you can weigh or measure away. ... They're not opposites that cancel each other out. They're both true at the same time.
Sonia SotomayorBut just as much as it is easy to find the differential [derivative] of a given quantity, so it is difficult to find the integral of a given differential. Moreover, sometimes we cannot say with certainty whether the integral of a given quantity can be found or not.
Johann BernoulliThis surpassed the fear of death. Death would be a mercy if it would make the feeling stop, the uncontrollable panic mingling with the mind-scrambling certainty of something sinister approaching, something with no need to hurry, something that would not be so kind as to let him die. The fear was palpable, suffocating, irresistible.
Brandon MullWhen you meditate you feel joy, harmony, peace, stillness, ecstasy, laughter, certainty, courage, strength, awareness and immortality. In the beginning you will feel these things vaguely, a distant knocking at your castle door.
Frederick LenzI have always felt that the moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.
Monica BaldwinCertainty is the most vivid condition of ignorance and the most necessay condition for knowledge.
Kedar JoshiYou were my hope during my days of loneliness, my anxiety during moments of doubt, my certainty during moments of faith.
Paulo CoelhoIn times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it.
Gavriel David RosenfeldIt is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.
Friedrich NietzschePeoples of the entire world need to hear these words. Their conscience needs to grow in the certainty that Someone exists who holds in His Hands the destiny of this passing world... And this Someone is Love- Love that became Man, Love crucified and risen, Love unceasingly present among men. It is Eucharistic Love.
Pope John Paul IIIf one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of typewriters, and lets them clap away, there is a certainty that one of them will come out with an exact version of the 'Iliad.'
Nassim Nicholas TalebNever was I so devout as when I composed The Creation. I knelt down each day to pray to God to give me strength for my work....When I was working on The Creation I felt so impregnated with Divine certainty, that before sitting down to the piano, I would quietly and confidently pray to God to grant me the talent that was needed to praise Him worthily.
Joseph HaydnLet no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away... a bigger fool than when he came to it.
Bill VaughanI'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.
James LovelockFinally, when all was said and done, the certainty (so often experienced, yet always new) that female charms, the kind that inflame the senses, are no more than kitchen smells: they tease you when you're hungry and disgust you when you've had your fill.
M. Ageyev