certainty quotes

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.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Dogmatism 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.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

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!

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

To me, ideology is corrupt; it’s a parasite on religious structures. To be an ideologue is to have all of the terrible things that are associated with religious certainty and none of the utility. If you’re an ideologue, you believe everything that you think. If you’re religious, there’s a mystery left there.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

I don’t see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

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

I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist.

Whatever possession we gain by our sword cannot be sure or lasting, but the love gained by kindness and moderation is certain and durable.

Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

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.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.