#certainty

Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters cooperation, not the opposite. ↗

— Philip K. Howard

#government #law #rules #uncertainty #death

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each. ↗

— Alan Lightman

#chance #commitment #uncertainty #uncertainty-principle #dreams

The road of 'God alone' struck me with unsettling fear. So I lingered in a kind of limbo. Unable to go back, unable to go on. Uncertain. Tentative. How strange that we tend to stand ankle-deep in the spiritual life even though the grounding depth of intimacy with God is the most nourishing experience of our lives and affirms our very being! ↗

— Sue Monk Kidd

#experience

Faith can be a greater asset than certainty. ↗

— Dawn Jayne

#faith #faith

Whether it is good or evil, whether life in itself is pain or pleasure, whether it is uncertain-that it may perhaps be this is not important-but the unity of the world, the coherence of all events, the embracing of the big and the small from the same stream, from the same law of cause, of becoming and dying. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#life #siddhartha #uncertainty #unity #life

The great systems that inform the world about the truth and life invariably claim to be absolutely truthful and well-balanced. In reality they are quaking bridges built out of yearning. ↗

— Peter Høeg

#belief #bridges #certainty #fear #life

What makes us leave what we love best? What is it inside us that keeps erasing itself When we need it most, That sends us into uncertainty for its own sake And holds us flush there until we begin to love it And have to begin again? What is it within our own lives we decline to live Whenever we find it, making our days unendurable, And nights almost visionless? I still don't know yet, but I do it. ↗

— Charles Wright

#living #love #poem #poetry #self

The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty. ↗

— Nikos Kazantzakis

#human-nature #soul #uncertainty #nature

It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about. ↗

— Criss Jami

#arguments #bigot #bigotry #bigots #certainty

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ↗

— Charles Darwin

#ignorance #knowledge #open-mindedness #science #willful-ignorance