#uncertain

When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall. ↗

— Kenneth Lay

#another #fall #other #shoe #think

The Reform Bill has destroyed the ancient conduits and strainers, and brings Public Opinion to act upon the government with the rapid, turbulent, and uncertain violence of a flood! ↗

— Robert Peel

#ancient #bill #brings #destroyed #flood

The Japanese campaign involves therefore two great uncertainties; first, whether Russia will come in though we think that will be all right; and second, when and how S-1 will resolve itself. ↗

— Henry L. Stimson

#come #first #great #how #involves

In the age of technology there is constant access to vast amounts of information. The basket overflows; people get overwhelmed; the eye of the storm is not so much what goes on in the world, it is the confusion of how to think, feel, digest, and react to what goes on. ↗

— Criss Jami

#confusion #disorientation #excess #excessive #eye

History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts. ↗

— Ian Fleming

#hero #heroes #history #uncertainty #villain

Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner. ↗

— Anne Rice

#courage #daring #knowledge #questions #risk

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ↗

— Nate Silver

#knowledge #prediction #self-knowledge #uncertainty #wisdom

He had the feeling that he must make a decision, and though he was used to making many decisions every day, this time he was beset with uncertainty; in fact he had no idea what was being asked of him ↗

— Amos Oz

#uncertainty #life

What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed-to for this kind of situation? A situation when when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant. ↗

— Sergio De La Pava

#future #life #past #retrospective #uncertainly

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar. ↗

— Richard P. Feynman

#opportunity