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Certainty Quotes

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Certainty Quotes

“If you are seeking for security, certainty, your eyes will become closed. And you will be less and less surprised and you will lose the capacity to wonder. Once you lose the capacity to wonder, you have lost religion. Religion is the opening of your wondering heart. Religion is a receptivity for the mysterious that surrounds us. Don't seek security; don't seek advice on how to live your life.”

IfsHeartEyeLostLosesWonderAdviceSecurityCapacitySeekingOpeningMysteriousCertaintySurroundLive Your LifeReceptivity
Author:Rajneesh
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“We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken.”

IfsGivingLooksHeartSoulBodyPainSpiritNightSufferingBreakAirSeaSkyEternalDepthBoundsTrialsCertaintyHillsDawnLook UpSteepSpirit Bound
Book:Gold Cord: The Story of a Fellowship
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“Science is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity, and scientific knowledge has become a vital part of our species' repertory. It comprises what we know of the material world with reasonable certainty. . . . Thanks to science and technology, access to factual information of all kinds is rising exponentially.”

KnowsWorldKindArtHumanityTechnologyInformationMaterialsUniversalSpeciesPossessionAccessAll KindsThanksCertaintyRisingReasonableScience And TechnologyFactualMaterial WorldScientific Knowledge
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“Pour the bulk of your time into action, not deciding. The state of indecision is a major time waster. Don't spend more than 60 seconds in that state if you can avoid it. Make a firm, immediate decision, and move from uncertainty to certainty to action. Let the world tell you when you're wrong, and you'll soon build enough experience to make accurate, intelligent decisions.”

IfsWorldStatesEnoughActionMovingDecisionMajorsIntelligentCertaintyUncertaintyFirmSecondsWasting TimeAccurateIndecisionFirm Decisions
Author:Steve Pavlina
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“Your good mother tells me you are feeling very badly in your new situation. Allow me to assure you it is a perfect certainty that you will, very soon, feel better - quite happy - if you only stick to the resolution you have taken to procure a military education.... On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”

IfsGivingFeelsFeelingsMotherLosesPerfectSituationTakenMilitaryRegretGiving UpSticksPerseveranceContraryCertaintyResolutionFeel BetterGood MotherNew Situations
Book:Abraham Lincoln's Wit & Wisdom
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“It is to them [fossils] alone that we owe the commencement of even a Theory of the Earth ... By them we are enabled to ascertain, with the utmost certainty, that our earth has not always been covered over by the same external crust, because we are thoroughly assured that the organized bodies to which these fossil remains belong must have lived upon the surface before they came to be buried, as they now are, at a great depth.”

BodyEarthScienceTheoryRemainsDepthSurfaceCertaintyOrganizedCoveredBuriedFossilsAssuredGeologyCommencement
Author:Georges Cuvier
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“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term.”

KnowsHelpingScienceDeathDiesTurnsTermHoursAnimalKnowledgeKnowingErrorsPainfulDareCertaintyWiserWoePainful Death
Book:Our Eternity
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“I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge - knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.”

GivingWould BeScienceSoundAbilityPerfectKnowledgeDoubtImpossibleIgnoranceTheoryCapacityInfiniteMethodConvincedCertaintyProbabilityInfinite Knowledge
Author:William Stanley Jevons
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“Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.”

ThinkingScienceTurnsViewsSubjectsTheoryComfortableScientistAccountsMethodPainfulObservationCertaintyVarietyInterpretationUncertainSparesQuarrelsScientific MethodRevisionDeviation
Author:Isaac Asimov
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“Whether moral and social phenomena are really exceptions to the general certainty and uniformity of the course of nature; and how far the methods, by which so many of the laws of the physical world have been numbered among truths irrevocably acquired and universally assented to, can be made instrumental to the gradual formation of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and political science.”

WorldHas BeensMadeBodyLawSciencePoliticalCoursesSocialNatureNaturalMoralMethodDoctrineCertaintyExceptionPolitical ScienceFormationUniformity
Book:The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women, On Liberty, Principles of Political Economy, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Memoirs…
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“The dignity of the human person is a transcendent value, always recognized as such by those who sincerely search for the truth. Indeed, the whole of human history should be interpreted in the light of this certainty. Every person, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:26 28), is therefore radically oriented towards the Creator, and is constantly in relationship with those possessed of the same dignity. To promote the good of the individual is thus to serve the common good, which is that point where rights and duties converge and reinforce one another.”

ShouldHumansPersonsWholeLightValuesIndividualCommonPovertyRightsDutyDignityCreatorCertaintyGenocidePossessedHuman HistorySincerelyTranscendentCommon GoodCfsRights And Duties
Author:Pope John Paul II
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“Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.”

MenBelieveHumansSpiritReligionBornAtheismWorstHuman NatureMastersSlaveTyrannyIgnorantCompromiseCertaintyArroganceImperfectionTyrantsModestyAssuranceTheological
Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
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“Theory has nothing to do with a work of art. Pictures which are interpretable, and which contain a meaning, are bad pictures. A picture presents itself as the Unmanageable, the Illogical, the Meaningless. It demonstrates the endless multiplicity of aspects; it takes away our certainty, because it deprives a thing of its meaning and its name. It shows us the thing in all the manifold significance and infinite variety that preclude the emergence of any single meaning and view.”

ArtShowsNamesViewsTheoryAspectInfiniteEndlessCertaintyVarietySignificanceWorks Of ArtMeaninglessEmergenceMultiplicityIllogicalManifold
Author:Gerhard Richter
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“Many of our brothers and sisters are 'baptized, but insufficiently evangelized.' In a number of cases, nations once rich in faith and in vocations are losing their identity under the influence of a secularized culture. The need for a new evangelization, so deeply felt by my venerable Predecessor, must be valiantly reaffirmed, in the certainty that God's word is effective.”

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Author:Pope Benedict XVI
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“Since Christ Himself said in reference to the bread: "This is My Body," who will dare remain hesitant? And since with equal clarity He asserted: "This is My Blood," who will dare entertain any doubt and say that this is not His Blood?... You have been taught these truths. Imbued with the certainty of faith, you know that what seems to be bread is not bread but the Body of Christ, although it seems to be bread when tasted. You also know that what seems to be wine is not wine but the Blood of Christ although it does taste like wine.”

KnowsDoeHas BeensSaidBodySeemsChristDoubtBloodTaughtTasteEqualWineDareBreadClarityCertaintySacramentsBody Of ChristHesitant
Author:Cyril of Jerusalem
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“There are five dark matters and five lamps. Love of this world is darkness, and the fear of Allaah is its lamp. Sin is darkness, and its lamp is repentance. The grave is darkness, and its lamp is 'none has the right to be worshipped but Allaah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allaah.' The hereafter is darkness, and its lamp is the good deed. The Siraat is darkness, and its lamp is certainty of faith.”

WorldMatterDarkSinDarknessFiveThis WorldDeedsGravesCertaintyIslamicRepentanceGood DeedsLampsMuhammadHereafterMessengersDark Matter
Author:Abu Bakr
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“Know for a certainty that if men understood how terrible is even one solitary sin, they would rather be cast into a heated furnace, and there remain, living both in soul and body, than to support such a sight. And if the sea were all fire they would cast themselves therein and never leave it, if they were certain of meeting the sin on doing so.”

IfsKnowsMenSoulBodyCertainSufferingSinSupportFireSeaTerribleUnderstoodSightMeetingsCastsCertaintySolitaryFurnacesSoul And Body
Author:Catherine of Genoa
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“Just as the spectroscope opened up a new astronomy by enabling the astronomer to determine some of the constituents of which distant stars are composed, so the seismograph, recording the unfelt motion of distant earthquakes, enables us to see into the earth and determine its nature with as great a certainty, up to a certain point, as if we could drive a tunnel through it and take samples of the matter passed through.”

IfsMatterEarthScienceCertainStarsNatureDetermineAstronomyCertaintyTunnelsEarthquakesEnablingConstituentsSampleAstronomers
Author:Richard Dixon Oldham
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“[Mathematics] is security. Certainty. Truth. Beauty. Insight. Structure. Architecture. I see mathematics, the part of human knowledge that I call mathematics, as one thing - one great, glorious thing. Whether it is differential topology, or functional analysis, or homological algebra, it is all one thing. ... They are intimately interconnected, they are all facets of the same thing. That interconnection, that architecture, is secure truth and is beauty. That's what mathematics is to me.”

HumansScienceKnowledgeOne ThingSecurityTruth IsMathematicsStructureInsightArchitectureSecureCertaintyAnalysisGloriousFacetsAlgebraInterconnectedHuman KnowledgeInterconnectionTopology
Author:Paul Halmos
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“Facts are certainly the solid and true foundation of all sectors of nature study ... Reasoning must never find itself contradicting definite facts; but reasoning must allow us to distinguish, among facts that have been reported, those that we can fully believe, those that are questionable, and those that are false. It will not allow us to lend faith to those that are directly contrary to others whose certainty is known to us; it will not allow us to accept as true those that fly in the face of unquestionable principles.”

BelieveHas BeensFactsFacesScienceFaithBeliefNatureKnownAcceptingPrinciplesStudyFoundationContraryCertaintyReasoningDefiniteQuestionableContradicting
Author:Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur
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“There are many paths to enlightenment. Some of us who have expanded to a degree of illumination have thereafter preached the dogmatic certainty of one particular path. But enlightenment doesn't care how you get there. And if you aren't going to be thinking about it in paradise, then don't worry about it now.”

IfsThinkingCareSpiritualWorryPathParticularDegreesEnlightenmentCertaintyParadiseIlluminationDogmaticMany PathsPath To Enlightenment
Author:Thaddeus Golas
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“The most distinctive characteristic which differentiates mathematics from the various branches of empirical science, and which accounts for its fame as the queen of the sciences, is no doubt the peculiar certainty and necessity of its results.”

ResultsDoubtFameAccountsMathematicsVariousMathCertaintyMathematicalQueensCharacteristicsBranchesNo DoubtPeculiarDistinctiveDifferentiate
Book:The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality
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