Quotes About Uncertainty

The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.

Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty . . . exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the . . . false to achieve primacy over the facts.

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

In terms of technology and science, tomorrow does know more than yesterday; but when it comes to emotions, living with uncertainty, terror, I'm not sure we know any more than Shakespeare did, or the Buddha. And the power of new things - the iPhone or Facebook - is so strong and intoxicating that we sometimes forget that none of them can fundamentally change our relation to ourselves and to what matters.

Every patient reacts a little differently, both biologically and psychologically. The only constant in cancer is inconstancy; the only certainty is a future of uncertainty, a truism for all of modern life but one made vivid by life-threatening illness.

In a world of turmoil and uncertainty, it is more important than ever to make our families the center of our lives and the top of our priorities.

Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.

Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage.

Life is full of change and uncertainty. We know this. We experience it on a daily basis.

We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty.

I'm their biggest fan every Sunday they go out there and play. I'm pulling for them, for the people in New Orleans and everything they're going through. If there are three or four hours that people can get away from the reality that is existing for them right now, the uncertainty, the unknown, the Saints can bring a sense of pride to them for that short period of time.

Courage means feeling all those hard human emotions - all that uncertainty and anxiety - and getting the job done anyway.

Madness is the result not of uncertainty but certainty.

Violence, with its ever-present economy of uncertainty, fear, and terror, is no longer merely a side effect of police brutality, war, or criminal behavior. It has become fundamental to neoliberalism as a particularly savage facet of capitalism. And in doing so it has turned out to be central to legitimating those social relations in which the political and pedagogical are redefined in order to undercut possibilities for authentic democracy.

I had been reading a lot of J.G. Ballard in the 90's and was fascinated by the idea of the vapid consumer society, the erotic charge of modern life, where the consumerist things we are coveting are just another form of destroying oneself - a modern world of uncertainty, where lost souls are trying to grab onto something for sense of contentment.

This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, we cannot retreat from it anymore.

Why certain political classes want purposefully to keep Americans in a state of perpetual debt and uncertainty and why certain people don't want a middle class - because middle class creates a certain happiness. You know what I mean?

In moments of uncertainty...i mmerse yourself in the life you would be most proud to live.

Turns out Picasso's passion for uncertainty, mystery, and the thrill of life never ended.

From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up - uncertainty goes up.

Elections themselves do not necessarily lead to more corporate uncertainty - quite the reverse, stable democracies create a reliable environment. And elections have caused hardly any change in the basic economic framework in the last few decades.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.

A time of uncertainty, of not knowing exactly where we're headed, or what kind of choice to make is a Zen moment.

The markets don't like instability and they don't like uncertainty.

Today is such a strange day. The news is out about the Russians and mini-Donald. This seems like a turning point, but it certainly has felt that way before. Like all of us, I am vibrating with electric uncertainty. How do you manage to concentrate and write poems? I know that for me it is just a relief to be in that sort of thinking, away from the news and all the immense global and personal worries.

I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

The shadow of fear and uncertainty lies over most of us; for us the future seems far from being as clear and open as we believed it would be.

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.

I'm tired of being scared, and I know you are too. Not that there isn't alot to be scared of in this world today, between the non-stop headlines about wars and nuclear power plants and terrorists and assasinations and civil unrest and economic uncertainty and political doublespeak and insane weather and an environment that's becoming unhealthier by the day. But a point comes when it's too much to deal with, and thinking about it accomplishes nothing more than sending you to bed with a cold cloth on your head.

Photography was not invented to serve a clearly understood function. There was in fact widespread uncertainty, even among its inventors, as to what it might be good for.

Leadership is about uncertainty. Deal with it

The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.

To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.

We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.

I think my work is very American because I'm American. But I found that Europeans like uncertainty and doubt.

If life were eternal, all interest and anticipation would vanish. It is uncertainty which lends it fascination.

Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about a lot of things.

At heart, "uncertainty" and "investing" are synonyms.

If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance.

If you don't think you want to go on a train and read the paper every day and work from nine to six at night, there was something about the uncertainty when I was younger which was very attractive

When mankind was in its infancy, steeped in uncertainty, ignorance, and error, was it possible to foresee what system it would adopt for preservation.

About the only certainty, other than uncertainty, in fly fishing is that a fly won't catch fish if it stays in its box.

The door to God is the insecurity of not knowing anything. Bear the grace of that uncertainty and all wisdom will be yours.

War is the province of chance. In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.

Much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences: the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer, the sense that one is expected to perform grief palatably. (If you don’t seem sad, people worry; but if you are grief-stricken, people flinch away from your pain.)

Modeling in Europe at the beginning of my career was pretty hard, with the constant traveling and uncertainty as to where I was going to be from one day to the next. I was always getting run-down from jet lag and being in strange towns where I didn't speak the language or know what the food was like.

Unrest and uncertainty are our lot.