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Probability Quotes

Browse 544 quotes about Probability.

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Probability Quotes

“To those of us who have been following the climate debate for decades, the next few years will be electrifying. There is a high probability we will witness the crackup of one of the most influential scientific paradigms of the 20th century, and the implications for policy and global politics could be staggering.”

YearsHas BeensNextCenturyPolicyClimateFollowingDecadesDebateWitnessProbability20th CenturyInfluentialImplicationsParadigmStaggering
Author:Ross McKitrick
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“The prospect, that a good general government will in all human probability be soon established in America, affords me more substantial satisfaction; than I have ever before derived from any political event. Because there is a rational ground for believing that not only the happiness of my own countrymen, but that of mankind in general, will be promoted by it.”

BelieveHumansGovernmentAmericaPoliticalMy OwnMankindEventsSatisfactionRationalProbabilityCountrymen
Book:The Writings of George Washington: pt. III. Private letters from the time Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Army to that of his inauguration as president of the United States: December, 1783-April, 1789
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“I am genuinely sorry for scientists of the younger generation who never knew Fisher personally. So long as you avoided a handful of subjects like inverse probability that would turn Fisher in the briefest possible moment from extreme urbanity into a boiling cauldron of wrath, you got by with little worse than a thick head from the port which he, like the Cambridge mathematician J. E. Littlewood, loved to drink in the evening. And on the credit side you gained a cherished memory of English spoken in a Shakespearean style and delivered in the manner of a Spanish grandee.”

LittlesLongMomentsTurnsSidesMemoriesGenerationsSubjectsStyleDrinkScientistSorryExtremesCreditEveningThickMathematicianProbabilityWrathHandfulAvoidedPortYounger GenerationBoilingCambridgeInverseCauldronsCherished Memories
Author:Fred Hoyle
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“If you sat with a pencil and jotted down all the decisions you've taken in the past week, or, if you could, over your lifetime, you would realize that almost all of them have had asymmetric payoff, with one side carrying a larger consequence than the other. You decide principally based on fragility, not probability. Or to rephrase, You decide principally based on fragility, not so much on True/False.”

IfsPastSidesRealizingDecisionTakenWeekConsequenceLifetimeSatOver YouProbabilityPencilsFragilityPayoff
Author:Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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“If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience. But if we shift our experience of self-identification - and this is what enlightenment is - from the body-self to the spiritual-self, then we place ourselves under an entirely different set of possibilities and probabilities.”

IfsWorldDifferentSelfBodySpiritualLevelsPossibilityEnlightenmentMortalsProbabilityBrokennessIdentificationScarcity
Author:Marianne Williamson
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“Nearly everybody nowadays accepts the 'causal completeness of physics' - every physical event (or at least its probability) has a full physical cause. This leaves no room for non-physical things to make a causal difference to physical effects. But it would be absurd to deny that thoughts and feelings (and population movements and economic depressions . . .) cause physical effects. So they must be physical things.”

FeelingsWould BeCausesDifferencesRoomsAcceptingEconomicEffectsEventsMovementPopulationDenyPhysicsAbsurdProbabilityThoughts And FeelingsCompletenessPhysical ThingsEconomic Depression
Author:David Papineau
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“In quantum mechanics there is A causing B. The equations do not stand outside that usual paradigm of physics. The real issue is that the kinds of things you predict in quantum mechanics are different from the kinds of things you predict using general relativity. Quantum mechanics, that big, new, spectacular remarkable idea is that you only predict probabilities, the likelihood of one outcome or another. That's the new idea.”

KindIdeasDifferentRealBigsIssuesPhysicsOutcomesRemarkableUsualQuantumNew IdeasProbabilityStanding OutMechanicEquationsSpectacularParadigmRelativityQuantum MechanicsLikelihoodGeneral Relativity
Author:Brian Greene
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“General relativity is in the old Newtonian framework where you predict what will happen, not the probability of what will happen. And putting together the probabilities of quantum mechanics with the certainty of general relativity, that's been the big challenge and that's why we have been excited about string theory, as it's one of the only approaches that can put it together.”

Has BeensBigsHappensTogetherChallengesTheoryApproachExcitedCertaintyStringsQuantumProbabilityMechanicFrameworkRelativityQuantum MechanicsBig ChallengesString TheoryGeneral Relativity
Author:Brian Greene
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“What geographic profiling does is it takes a look at the locations of a connected series of incidents - say murders in a serial murder case or robberies in a serial bank robber case - and it spatially analyzes the point pattern of incidents, and creates a probability surface from those, working from the basis of an algorithm that says people offend close to where they live, but not too close.”

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Author:Kim Rossmo
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“If you do not have at least an eight-month emergency fund, and you think there's a probability you could loose your job - and it's not just losing your job; you could be in a car accident, get sick - continue to pay the minimum on your credit card every month. Everything beyond that needs to go to establish an emergency fund. And if you have an emergency fund saved, then fund your retirement account before paying down credit card debt.”

IfsThinkingNeedsJobsPayCarMonthsLosingSickAccountsEightCreditDebtAccidentsSavedCardsFundRetirementMinimumProbabilityEmergenciesCredit CardCar AccidentCredit Card Debt
Author:Suze Orman
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“I was speaking on the radio in South Texas [in 2016], and I was speaking to Hispanics, and I said 'You know, you probably vote Democrat because your parents always voted Democrat, and your grandparents always voted Democrat, but let me tell you something. Thirty years ago in Texas, there were two parties - liberal Democrats and conservative Democrats. Looking at your principles, your values as Hispanics, in all probability your parents were conservative Democrats. The conservative Democrats of 30 years ago are Republicans today!'”

KnowsYearsSaidTwoTodayValuesParentPartyPrinciplesRepublicanYears AgoVoteLet MeDemocratSouthConservativeRadioThirtyTexasGrandparentProbabilityThirty Years
Author:Rafael Cruz
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“One influential philosophical position about the use of probability in science holds that probabilities are objective only if they are based on micro-physics; all other probabilities should be interpreted subjectively, as merely revealing our ignorance about physical details. I have argued against this position, contending that the objectivity of micro-physical probabilities entails the objectivity of macro-probabilities.”

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Author:Elliott Sober
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“For the first time in living memory, the whole class of graduates faces a future of crushing debt, and a high probability, almost the certainty, of ad hoc, temporary, insecure and part-time work and unpaid 'trainee' pseudo-jobs deceitfully rebranded as 'practices' - all considerably below the skills they have acquired and eons below the level of their expectations.”

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Author:Zygmunt Bauman
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“I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis.”

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Author:Richard Dawkins
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“There is a radical and unprecedented shift [in war] that is part of the general transformation of civilization. First, understand that the past 150 years of warfare are totally unprecedented in that we introduced a breathtakingly inefficient technology: guns. In the First World War, and this is not an exaggeration, it took 10,000 rounds of ammunition to kill one person. Any given shot had a one in 10,000 probability of ending someone's life.”

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Author:George Friedman
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“In a business setting, one's intelligence is crucial. Many problems faced by today's executives are unique and ill-defined. So, one's ability to analyze information and render a decision based upon the probability of success is imperative. What it comes down to is that all the knowledge in the world is useless if one has no means of processing and applying it. Organizations run on the brainpower of their people.”

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Author:Justin Menkes
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“The most important thing you can do individually and organizationally is to pay attention to your own creativity. Sports psychologists call this muscle memory or paying attention to your perfect performance. In your own life you can notice when you do something that works right for you and celebrate it. The more you do this, the greater the probability that you will act creatively in future situations.”

ImportantSportsMemoriesPerfectAttentionSituationCreativityCelebratePay AttentionProbabilityPsychologist
Author:Michael Ray
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