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Uncertainty Quotes

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Uncertainty Quotes

“I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy. I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people. Someone wrote a Wikipedia entry about me, identifying me as an atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs other than their own?”

PeopleWorldHumansSaidStillsBookBeliefSimpleWorryNotionAtheistBelieverUncertaintyUncomfortableFancyAgnosticEntryIdentifyingWikipediaUnbelieversInfidel
Author:Alan Alda
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“Well, to me, the tensile strength and the very definition of an artist is something that I would place at the top of a vertical hierarchy. To be an artist is to suffer and to lead a life without shelter. It takes a great amount of daring-do, self reinvention, imagination, familial loyalty, sacrifice, economic uncertainty, and the right to be wrong, the right to fail in order to achieve something of noticeable value.”

WellsSelfArtistSufferingValuesOrderImaginationFailingSacrificeEconomicAchieveAmountDefinitionsLoyaltyUncertaintyDaringShelterHierarchyVerticalReinvention
Author:Van Dyke Parks
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“Why is fear part of earth life? Perhaps our Heavenly Father’s greatest hope is that through our fears we may choose to turn to Him. The uncertainties of earth life can help to remind each of us that we are dependent on Him. But that reminder is not automatic. It involves our agency. We must choose to take our fears to Him, choose to trust Him, and choose to allow Him to direct us. We must make these choices when what we feel most inclined to do is to rely more and more on our own frantic and often distorted thinking.”

ThinkingFeelsMayHelpingEarthTurnsChoicesFatherDirectUncertaintyRelyAgencyDependentHeavenlyRemindersHeavenly FatherFranticEarth Life
Author:Virginia H. Pearce
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“We tend to think of dangers and uncertainties as anomalies in the continuum of life, or irruptions of unpredictable forces into a largely predictable world. I suggest the contrary: that dangers and uncertainties are an inescapable dimension of life. In fact, as we shall come to understand, they make life matter. They define what it means to be human.”

ThinkingWorldHumansMeanMatterFactsForceDangerContraryUncertaintyDimensionsUnpredictablePredictableContinuumAnomaliesWhat It Means To Be Human
Book:What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger
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“I try to make art which celebrates doubt and uncertainty. Which provokes answers but doesn't give them. Which withholds absolute meaning by incorporating parasite meanings. Which suspends meaning while perpetually dispatching you toward interpretation, urging you beyond dogmatism, beyond doctrine, beyond ideology, beyond authority.”

GivingTryingArtAnswersDoubtAuthorityAbsolutesDoctrineCelebrateIdeologyUncertaintyInterpretationProvokingParasitesDogmatismIncorporating
Author:Sherrie Levine
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“We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears.”

IfsLittlesStepsPlansReadyAmountRootsStuckFamiliarUncertaintyMapsLeapVoidAgain And AgainSteps ForwardHaving HopeRationalizeThickets
Book:On Such a Full Sea: A Novel
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“The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its purpose is to protect persons and property.... If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, or artistic -- you will then be lost in uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it on you.”

IfsMayPersonsLawSpiritPurposeLostReligiousActingProtectLimitsPropertyStriveMissionsArtisticUncertaintyTerritoryMultitudesExceedUtopiaPhilanthropicPlunderUnchartedVaguenessFraternalUncharted Territory
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“A religion is a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong--and you are strong. The great trouble with religion--any religion--is that the religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge these propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason--but one cannot have both.”

MayReasonCertainReligionStrongFireTroubleJudgingSourceComfortEvidenceWeakWarmAcceptedUncertaintyAppropriatePropositionsBleakSource Of Happiness
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“Life is infinite energy coupled with limitless creative imagination. It is the invisible essence and substance of every visible form. Its nature is goodness, truth, wisdom and beauty, as well as energy and imagination. Our highest satisfaction comes from a sense of conscious union with this invisible Life. All human endeavor is an attempt to get back to first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt and uncertainty vanishes.”

FirstsHumansWellsFormLife IsEnergyImaginationPrinciplesCreativeDoubtGoodnessHighestConsciousEssenceInfiniteUnionsSatisfactionInvisibleUncertaintySubstanceVisibleGet BackEndeavorInwardWholenessLimitlessCreative Imagination
Book:The Art of Life
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“I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.”

IfsThinkingWorldHappensWould BeThis WorldTruth IsBlessedSupremeCertaintyUncertaintyQuestsUncertainGlimpseTransientBeing BlessedSupreme Being
Book:Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
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“Climate helps to shape the character of peoples, certainly no people more than the English. The uncertainty of their climate has helped to make the English, a long-suffering, phlegmatic, patient people rather insensitive to surprise, stoical against storms,. slightly incredulous at every appearance of the sun, touched by the lyrical gratitude of someone who expects nothing and suddenly receives more than he dreamed.”

PeopleLongCharacterHelpingDreamSufferingSunGratitudeShapesSurpriseClimatePatientAppearanceStormUncertaintyTouchedLyricalInsensitiveExpect NothingLong Suffering
Author:H. E. Bates
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“Certainty is not biologically possible. We must learn (and teach our children) to tolerate the unpleasantness of uncertainty. Science has given us the language and tools of probabilities. We have methods for analyzing and ranking opinion according to their likelihood of correctness. That is enough.”

ChildrenEnoughLanguageGivenOpinionTeachHumilityToolsOur ChildrenMethodCertaintyUncertaintyTolerateProbabilityCorrectnessLikelihoodAnalyzingRanking
Author:Robert A. Burton
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“I'm their biggest fan every Sunday they go out there and play. I'm pulling for them, for the people in New Orleans and everything they're going through. If there are three or four hours that people can get away from the reality that is existing for them right now, the uncertainty, the unknown, the Saints can bring a sense of pride to them for that short period of time.”

PeopleIfsPlayRealityThreeHoursFourFansPridePeriodsRight NowSaintUncertaintySundayGet AwayPullingNew OrleansBiggest Fan
Author:Bill Cowher
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