Quotessence
Home / Topics / Certainty Quotes

Certainty Quotes

Browse 1462 quotes about Certainty.

Related topics

IfsCertainKnowsUncertaintyMenDoubtPeopleWorldThinkingAbsolutesAbsolute CertaintyMayHumansScienceReasoningGivingLogicWayMindOntologyNeedsFactsMatterBelieveBeliefHas BeensDoePersonsShouldSelfKindStillsTwoProbabilityWantMathematicsFeelingsFeelsLifeSoulI CanLongRealEnoughFirstsLittlesMathematicalSaidMeanUncertainAnswersDegreesInfiniteKnowingLastsHeartIgnoranceInspirationalMomentsMoralSeemsWould BeYearsDreamMadeReasonCertainty In LifeConvictionDecisionIdeasOrderRealityStatesBodyDiesEndsEvidenceExistenceFormFoundKnowledgeLife IsLooksSometimesUniverseAbleChanceChristianFacesGreaterHandsIndividualOpinionPossibilityTheoryTryingWellsWholeAcceptingAgemore

Certainty Quotes

“"What is the meaning of life?" This question has no answer except in the history of how it came to be asked. There is no answer because words have meaning, not life or persons or the universe itself. Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe.”

PersonsSelfUniverseIndividualUnderstandingAnswersCivilizationCertaintyMeaning Of LifeAweWhat Is The Meaning Of LifeWhat Is The Meaning
Author:Julian Jaynes
Create image

“I accept that life is uncertain--that the goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next. And then, miracle of miracles, out there in the deep and uncertain water, I come into a peaceful knowing--a faithful wisdom that surpasses control and certainty.”

LifeLife IsCertainNextGoalWaterAcceptingKnowingMysteryMiraclePeacefulCertaintyFaithfulRelaxNot KnowingUncertain
Author:Elizabeth Lesser
Create image

“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.”

LittlesMadeModernConstantPatientCancerIllnessCertaintyUncertaintyThreateningVividModern LifeTruismInconstancy
Book:Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People, and Culture
Create image

“Christmas is ... a time to mark our progress through this earthly journey. Every December we can look back and marvel at the designs of God and realize how very little we are in control of the events that shaped the past year. Then, with hearts full, look to the celebration of that silent, holy night, and all its certainty. Because of Christmas, this we know: Christ was born for us. He is love, and the plans he has for us always surpass those of our own.”

KnowsYearsLooksHeartLittlesPastNightChristRealizingBornProgressPlansJourneyEventsDesignHolyMarkSilentChristmasCertaintyCelebrationDecemberHoly Night
Author:Karen Kingsbury
Create image

“Through positive thinking and related approaches, we seek the safety and solid ground of certainty, of knowing how the future will turn out, of a time in the future when we'll be ceaselessly happy and never have to fear negative emotions again. But in chasing all that, we close down the very faculties that permit the happiness we crave.”

ThinkingTurnsEmotionKnowingPositive ThinkingApproachNegativeSafetyCertaintyRelatedFacultyPermitChasingCraveNegative Emotions
Author:Oliver Burkeman
Create image

“I confess that I have not cleared a path through all seven hundred pages, I confess to having examined only bits and pieces, and yet I know what it is, with that bold and legitimate certainty with which we assert our knowledge of a city, without ever having been rewarded with the intimacy of all the many streets it includes.”

KnowsBookLanguageBitsCitiesPathPiecesStreetsPagesHundredSevenCertaintyIntimacyBits And Pieces
Book:Selected Non-fictions
Create image

“It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.”

MenBelieveCertainOpinionAtheismProduceOughtEssentialsEvidenceDenyPositive AtheismProfessionContraryDoctrineObjectivesCertaintyJustifyPropositionsImmoralDisbeliefAgnosticismObjective Truth
Book:Lectures and Essays
Create image

“The significant contribution of empiricism was not the eradication of certainty, but the eradication of infallibility as a criterion of certainty. And this shift from infallibilism to fallibilism has profound consequences not only for toleration, but also for the subordination of faith to reason and theology to philosophy.”

ReasonPhilosophyAtheismConsequenceProfoundPositive AtheismSignificantTheologyCertaintyContributionCriteriaTolerationEmpiricismSubordinationInfallibility
Book:Why Atheism?
Create image

“If you raise your standards but don't really believe you can meet them, you've already sabotaged yourself. You won't even try; you'll be lacking the sense of certainty that allows you to tap the deepest capacity that's within you... Our beliefs are like unquestioned commands, telling us how things are, what's possible and impossible and what we can and can not do. They shape every action, every thought and every feeling that we experience. As a result, changing our belief systems is central to making any real and lasting change in our lives.”

IfsTryingBelieveRealFeelingsActionBeliefResultsOur LivesImpossibleShapesStandardsCapacityRaisesSettingCommandCertaintyLastingWithin YouLackingCan NotChanging Your LifeBelief SystemsBelieve You CanSabotageHigh StandardsPossible And ImpossibleLimiting BeliefsLasting ChangeRaise Your Standards
Author:Tony Robbins
Create image

“If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.”

IfsWorldStillsEndsMatterHappensSufferingDiesEnjoyPlansCryMoonAccidentsDespiteCertaintyPredictionsProbabilityFiniteAssuranceAssuredEnjoyableAdaptedIf Then
Book:The Wisdom of Insecurity
Create image

“The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.”

MenFeelsMaySoulStatesSpiritDesireTurnsExistenceSuccessfulAliveFailingObjectsEternityCertaintyFixedWickedImmortalDisappointedWiserWickednessCravingPursuedSuccessful ManWicked Man
Book:On Sir Francis Burdett's motion for parliamentary reform.-On the conduct of the war.-On the cry of the Whigs for peace, 1810.-Army and navy reforms, 1810.-On the economical reformers, 1811.-On the state of the poor.-The principle of Mr. Malthus's essay on population.-The manufacturing system, 1812.-On the state of the poor.-On the accounts of England by foreign travellers and the state of public opinion, 1816.-On the state of public opinion and the political reformers, 1816.-v.2 A letter to Will
Create image

“Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.”

WarUseMightPoliticalStrongMilitaryDefeatSoldierPopulationProfessionSuperiorsCertaintyAggressiveRulersCiviliansDeterrent
Author:Barry Goldwater
Create image

“An election marks the end of the affair; it puts paid to the seduction of the many by the few. Pretty words, fulsome promises. We wind up married, but to whom, to what? We cannot always predict with certainty the future leader from the winning candidate. Some men grow in the job; others are diminished by its demands and its grandeur.”

MenEndsJobsPoliticsWinningGrowsLeaderWindPromiseDemandMarriedMarkPaidElectionAffairCertaintyCandidatesSeductionGrandeurFuture LeadersPretty Words
Author:Anna Quindlen
Create image

“... any woman who accepts aloneness as the natural by-product of success is accepting a punishment for a crime she didn't commit. And she is not acknowledging one of the most precious lessons of the women's movement, the lessons of community ... We may not able to tell women that there is safety in freedom. But we certainly can say, with absolute certainty, that for free women, the only safety is in numbers.”

MayAbleCommunityNaturalNumbersAcceptingCrimeMovementProductsLessonsAbsolutesSafetyPunishmentCommitCertaintyAbsolute Certainty
Author:Marlo Thomas
Create image

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you.”

KnowsMenFirstsDoneCharacterHeavenSecretPrinciplesWiseEternalCertaintyEternal LifeExaltedTrue GodCharacter Of God
Author:Joseph Smith, Jr.
Create image

“The moral government of God is a movement in a line onwards towards some grand consummation, in which the principles, indeed, are ever the same, but the developments are always new - in which, therefore, no experience of the past can indicate with certainty what new openings of truth, what hew manifestations of goodness, what new phases of the moral heaven may appear.”

MayGodGovernmentPastHeavenLinesMoralPrinciplesMovementDevelopmentGoodnessOpeningCertaintyManifestationPhases
Author:Mark Hopkins
Create image

“In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We'd love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.”

WorldWayFirstsEndsSeemsOrderChoicesGivenEnjoyForgetLibertyOur LivesAmountValuableSpendingCertaintySettlingObsessedEarningUnlimitedHolding OnQuestionableEarning Money
Author:Rolf Potts
Create image