Certainty Quotes - page 7

[I have] various tricks to actually reach that solitary point of creativity. One of them is pretending I have an idea. But that trick doesn't survive very long because I don't really trust ideas – especially good ones... Rather, I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown. It is then that I begin to work.... when I don't have the comfort of sureness and certainty. Sometimes Jack Daniels helps too. Another good trick is fatigue. I like to start working when it's almost too late.... when my sense of efficiency is exhausted. (Robert Rauschenberg)
One should not be deceived by philosophical works that pretend to be mathematical, but are merely dubious and murky metaphysics. Just because a philosopher can recite the words lemma, theorem and corollary doesn't mean that his work has the certainty of mathematics. That certainty does not derive from big words, or even from the method used by geometers, but rather from the utter simplicity of the objects considered by mathematics. View quote
Pierre Louis Maupertuis
May God give a blessed Laylat Al-Bara'ah to the whole Islamic World. May God give all Muslims faith in the degree of Haqq al-yaqîn (the total reality of Certainty), may God give them all the faith of the Prophets. May the decision for the system of the Mahdi, for the Unity of Islam be given insha'Allah in this night. View quote
Adnan Oktar
It's not doubt that drives people crazy, it's certainty that does. View quote
Françoise Sagan
I never imagined it wouldn't work out for me. I had that absolute certainty in myself that has seen me through, I think, and my parents were absolutely behind me all the way. View quote
Ewan McGregor
...the French business is no light or trivial thing, or such as has commonly occurd in the course of political Events. At present the whole political State of Europe hinges upon it. On the Continent there is little doubt; every thing will take is future shape and colour from the good or ill success of the Duke of Brunswick. In my opinion, it is the most important crisis that ever existed in the World. ... My poor opinion is, that these principles...cannot possibly be realized in practice in France, without an absolute certainty and that at no remote period, of overturning the whole fabrick of the British Constitution. View quote
Edmund Burke
I have realised from the first that if it could not be proved that social reform (not Socialism) can be financed on a Free Trade line, a return to Protection is a moral certainty. View quote
H. H. Asquith
The fluctuations of certainty, the change Of degrees of perception in the scholar's dark. View quote
Wallace Stevens
If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach. View quote
William Barclay
There is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty. View quote
Emma Thompson
If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics... (Roger Bacon)
A Federal is not fit to suck the sweat from your dirty socks. Give them no satisfaction. I am sure that with the strength gained from the certainty of moral rectitude you will bring honor to a thousand generations of your ancestors... With the fanaticism of desperation, yet the cunning and stealth of a Viking warrior, you must live and spread the concept stated in the 14 WORDS. View quote
David Lane (white nationalist)
May we have the courage to face the eventual doom of our civilization as we have the courage to face the certainty of our personal doom. The simple faith in progress is not a conviction belonging to strength, but one belong to acquiescence and hence to weakness. View quote
Norbert Wiener
The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically there is nothing in the world, that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing. View quote
Jiddu Krishnamurti
There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. Arren found himself unwilling to stay on these cold summits. He said after a little while, "I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent; they kill because they must.” "That is why nothing else can resist us. Only one thing in the world can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it.”. View quote
Ursula K. Le Guin
The mission I am on overrides all personal debts and loyalties.” "If so,” said the stranger with fierce certainty, "it is an immoral mission. View quote
Ursula K. Le Guin
There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly. View quote
Alfred North Whitehead
Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos. View quote
Henry Miller
He recognized with absolute certainty the empty fragility of even the noblest theorizings as compared with the definitive plenitude of the smallest fact grasped in its total, concrete reality. View quote
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I'm for open-mindedness and tolerance. I'm against any form of fanaticism, fundamentalism or zealotry, and this certainty of 'We have the truth.' The truth is far too large and complex. Nobody has the truth. View quote
Philip Pullman
All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. (Ian McEwan)
His destiny had betrayed him, had made him a destroyer on a scale that humbled even Caine. Destiny, he understood with bitter certainty, could not be trusted. View quote
Matthew Stover
Don't be too harsh to these poems until they're typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction. View quote
Dylan Thomas
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made. View quote
Ambrose Bierce
I make no vows. I take my chance. ... It means that I fear certainty as you fear uncertainty. It means that nothing is certain but uncertainty. If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation. View quote
George Bernard Shaw