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Certainty Quotes

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Certainty Quotes

“I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story.”

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Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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“Delacroix, Wagner, Baudelaire - all great theorists, bent on dominating other minds by sensuous means. Their one dream was to create the irresistible effect - to intoxicate, or overwhelm. They looked to analysis to provide them with the keyboard on which to play, with certainty, on man's emotions, and they sought in abstract meditation they key to sure and certain action upon their subject - man's nervous and psychic being.”

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Author:Charles Baudelaire
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“If the biblical story is true, the kind of certainty proper to a human begin will be one which rests on the fidelity of God, not upon the competence of the human knower. It will be a kind of certainty which is inseparable from gratitude and trust”

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Book:Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship
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“Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the capacity of any feature, however well adapted to a present role.”

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Book:Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History
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“I have a certainty about eternity that is a wonderful thing, and I thank God for giving me that certainty. I do not fear death. I may fear a little bit about the process, but not death itself, because I think the moment that my spirit leaves this body, I will be in the presence of the Lord.”

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Author:Billy Graham
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“When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.”

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Book:Why I Am Not a Christian
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“Since reasoning , or inference, the principal subject of logic, is an operation which usually takes place by means of words , and in complicated cases can take place in no other way: those who have not a thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances, amounting almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly.”

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Book:A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive: Mill's Works
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“All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self. What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself - a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required. I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.”

I CanSelfActorsCan DoCompanyPlayerIdentityJokesTheaterCertaintyVarietyPermanentUnwillingTroupe
Author:Philip Roth
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“Politics have always covered two distinct kinds of problems: problems of administrative routine, and those that may be called 'questions of the moment.' A question of the moment is, indeed, a substitute for some notion, such as the idea of God, or hereditary monarchy, or national glory, that has hitherto acted as a symbol of human co-ordination. It provides no new positive certainty to replace the discredited certainty, but is what the name implies: the raising of a question which the old certainty no longer answers.”

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Author:Laura Riding
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“Because of its concrete content, sense-certainty immediately appears as the richest kind of knowledge, indeed a knowledge of infinite wealth for which no bounds can be found, either when we reach out into space and time in which it is dispersed, or when we take a bit of this wealth, and by division enter into it. Moreover, sense-certainty appears to be the truest knowledge ... but, in the event, this very certainty proves itself to be the most abstract and poorest truth. All that it says about what it knows is just that it is; and its truth contains nothing but the sheer being of the thing.”

KnowsKindFoundBitsWealthSpaceEventsProveInfiniteBoundsCertaintyAbstractDivisionReach OutConcreteSheerTime And SpacePoorestTruestProve It
Author:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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“I examined my Liberalism and found it like an addiction to roulette. Here, though the odds are plain, and the certainty of loss apparent to anyone with a knowledge of arithmetic, the addict, failing time and again, is convinced he yet is graced with the power to contravene natural laws. The roulette addict, when he invariably comes to grief, does not examine either the nature of roulette, or of his delusion, but retires to develop a new system, and to scheme for more funds.”

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Author:David Mamet
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“We say that we often see animals in our dreams, but we forget that almost always we are ourselves animals therein, deprived of that reasoning power which projects upon things the light of certainty; on the contrary we bring to bear on the spectacle of life only a dubious vision, extinguished anew every moment by oblivion, the former reality fading before that which follows it as one projection of a magic lantern fades before the next as we change the slide.”

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Book:Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's way. Within a budding grove
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“The truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent, and ... one may perhaps gather it with more certainty, without waiting for words and without even taking any account of them, from countless outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomena, analogous in the sphere of human character to what atmospheric changes are in the physical world.”

WorldNeedsHumansMayMadeCharacterTruthCertainWaitingAccountsInvisibleCertaintySpheres
Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume III: The Guermantes Way
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“The faith towards God in Christ must be sure and steadfast, that it may solace and make glad the conscience, and put it to rest. When a man has this certainty, he has overcome the serpent; but if he be doubtful of the doctrine, it is for him very dangerous to dispute with the devil.”

IfsMenMayChristDangerousDevilConscienceOvercomingGladDoctrineCertaintyDisputesSolaceDoubtfulSerpentSteadfast
Book:The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt
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“You had to form for yourself a lucid language for the world, to overcome the battering of experience, to replace everyday life's pain and harshness and wretched dreariness with - no not with certainty but with an ignorance you could live with. Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.”

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Author:Gregory Benford
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“Can any man say with certainty that he was happy at a particular moment of time which he remembers as being delightful? Remembering it certainly makes him happy, because he realizes how happy he could have been, but at the actual moment when the alleged happiness was occurring, did he really feel happy? He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried.”

MenFeelsHas BeensMomentsRememberRealizingPiecesParticularLaysTreasureCertaintyBuriedDelightfulCould Have Been
Author:Eugene Delacroix
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“Does not all the world know that when in autumn the Bismarcks of the world, or they who are bigger than Bismarcks, meet at this or that delicious haunt of salubrity, the affairs of the world are then settled in little conclaves, with grater ease, rapidity, and certainty than in large parliaments or the dull chambers of public offices?”

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Book:The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children
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“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature - after the recipe for making eels from flour - is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried the impossibility. If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.”

IfsDoeOrderTeachDoubtConditionsCrySupremeAbsurdCertaintyPleasantImmenseDependenceRecipesImpossibilityAdmirableThere Is No GodAudacityFlourEels
Author:Baron d'Holbach
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“In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth.”

WellsRememberFoundSoundGrowthPrinciplesDangerWorshipGoldCompromiseCertaintyPerpetualTinselPerpetual Motion
Author:Benjamin Cardozo
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“All speech should be presumed to be protected by the Constitution, and a heavy burden should be placed on those who would censor to demonstrate with relative certainty that the speech at issue, if not censored, would lead to irremediable and immediate serious harm.”

IfsShouldIssuesSeriousSpeechConstitutionBurdenHeavyHarmCertaintyRelativeProtectedFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechCensoredHeavy Burdens
Book:Finding, Framing, and Hanging Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and Freedom of Speech in an Age of Terrorism
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“While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.”

AbleLevelsFiguresMajorsWeaponsPercentDestructionAccountsMajorityIraqProductionsSignificantAgentsCertaintyFactoriesDispositionEquipmentItemsDisarmamentWeaponry
Author:Scott Ritter
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“A science only advances with certainty, when the plan of inquiry and the object of our researches have been clearly defined; otherwise a small number of truths are loosely laid hold of, without their connexion being perceived, and numerous errors, without being enabled to detect their fallacy.”

Has BeensNumbersPlansObjectsResearchErrorsDefinedCertaintyInquiryFallacySmall NumbersConnexion
Book:A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
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