The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

Being on tour is like being in limbo. It’s like going from nowhere to nowhere.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

I don’t think you ever really know what all you’re doing, so you have to act on faith.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

There are many things that I don’t understand.

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‚how-to-parent‘ strategies both seductive and dangerous.

In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good.

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

Why should I be studying for a future that soon may not exist?

I don’t have all the answers.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Often, I can scarcely hear any one speaking to me; the tones yes, but not the actual words; yet as soon as any one shouts, it is unbearable. What will come of all this, heaven only knows!

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information – the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

My mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant. There was always a debate going on at home – I think in those days we called them arguments – about who was right and who was wrong.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity.

Part of the reason there’s an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you’re in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let’s say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.

I’m not a fortune-teller.

There’s no doubt that inequality destabilizes societies. I think the social science evidence on that front is crystal clear.

I always wonder when it was that I was embraced.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.