Quotes About Uncertainty

In the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, from the prison of past conditioning. Uncertainty is the fertile ground of creativity and freedom.

Uncertainty hurts business. It annoys individuals. Why keep the whole country, including business and individuals, in uncertainty over the extent of the tax burdens to be placed upon us? How many of those who voted for Calvin Coolidge imagined for a moment that would do nothing to bring about tax relief before 1926?.... But if the Administration persists in opposing a special session then it will inevitably be 1926 before action is taken.... Coolidge and Congress should ease our minds and grease our activities by reforming and reducing taxation as soon as feasible after March 4.

We know that uncertainty creates anxiety and sometimes desperate attempts to find something to believe in. Uncertainty engenders real opportunity as well as misleading choices, great leaders as well as false messiahs, and new ways of understanding the world alongside hollow maxims and deceptive promises. Understandably, we seek guides and guideposts to ease the anxiety of the journey. But we also need to depend on our own insights and imagination to cultivate, from our own experience, a way to move forward.

Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.

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.

You know, businesses hate uncertainty more than anything else.

I think love is often a bit selfish, even before we had consumerism. That's not new. A consumer society gives you the illusion of having massive amounts of choice and saddles you with the freedom of being able to dabble in that choice. And at the same time, you are left with the tyranny of self-doubt and uncertainty about whether you made the right choice.

Decreasing economic growth and increasing inequality leads to increased uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment - you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out. Failure means making a decision to let go, to be less than 100% committed, when confronted by fear, pain and uncertainty.

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.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still

Investors don't like uncertainty.

The uncertainty of our future is nothing more than a fog of breath on a windowpane.

I cannot have chaos erupting around me until I am prepared for it. I am a collector. I am an observer. I don't participate. My resources, and my standing, must be secure before I can allow the uncertainty of war to crash down upon us.

While we cannot accurately predict the course of climate change in the coming decades, the risks we run if we don't change our course are enormous. Prudent risk management does not equate uncertainty with inaction.

There cannot be any peace where there is uncertainty.

How small we humans are. All our scrambling around, trying to buttress ourselves against death. All our efforts to insulate ourselves against uncertainty with codes of behavior and meaningless busyness.

Courage is defined as: the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action. Many of today's world leaders have great courage: I wonder... would we be better off with cowardice?

To start blindly with a statement is a sign of arrogance and narrow-mindedness, and will lead to conflict. To start blindly with a question is a sign of uncertainty and honesty, and will lead to wisdom.

With the level of uncertainty we see today, more people are asking, how can you develop a strategy in a world that keeps changing so fast? They are afraid that a set of rigid principles will hinder their ability to react quickly. I argue that it is precisely at such times that you need a strategy.

Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them.

I think our brains does have a tendency to be true to its own ideas and statements. Everything we do and everything we think about is a belief. Until we get to the point where we look beyond our own ego-self, and to some degree beyond our own mind, we are always going to make assumptions and have beliefs to make our brains feel more comfortable. And if we can get to a point where we embrace that uncertainty and doubt, and be willing to learn from that and to explore that, I think that that could be a very positive experience.

Love has a particular trait: far from being indulgent or fickle, it has a task or purpose to fulfil: to abide. By its nature love is enduring. Again, dear friends, we catch a further glimpse of how much the Holy Spirit offers our world: love which dispels uncertainty; love which overcomes the fear of betrayal; love which carries eternity within; the true love which draws us into a unity that abides!

Trust in my wisdom. I do not make mistakes. Love my uncertainty for it is not a mistake. It is my intent and will. Remember - nothing happens without my will. Be still. Do not ask to understand. Do not want to understand.

Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.

Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.

It's the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it's running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business.

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

Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. Vagabonding starts now. Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility. From here, the reality of vagabonding comes into sharper focus as you adjust your worldview and begin to embrace the exhilarating uncertainty that true travel promises.

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

Writing should be an adventure, shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, blessed with amazing grace. In theory, of course

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

Uncertainty in the pressure of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

... we know that productivity suffers when uncertainty is high. But we've failed to realize the equally destructive effects of too little anxiety. ... By protecting people from risk, we destroy their self-esteem. We rob them of the opportunity to become strong, competent people.

I am very Aristotelian in approach - not in detail - so I always find I'm saying things that get people frustrated like 'It's a matter of balance and judgement'. To a lot of philosophers these are terrible words because they're admitting of vagueness and uncertainty. The more I've done philosophy, the more I've become convinced that that is the way it is.

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

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.

The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism.

There is no such thing as zero uncertainty.

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.

The world is noisy and messy. You need to deal with the noise and uncertainty.

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.

Uncertainty is a quality to be cherished, therefore – if not for it, who would dare to undertake anything?

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

It is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.