#uncertain

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. ↗

— Pema Chödrön

#uncertainty #uncertainty

If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if it's done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#time-travel #uncertainty

To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. ↗

— Rebecca Solnit

#wanderlust #uncertainty

It was like sawdust, the unhappiness: it infiltrated everything, everything was a problem, everything made her cry -- school, homework, boyfriends, the future, the lack of future, the uncertainty of future, fear of future, fear in general -- but it was so hard to say exactly what the problem was in the first place. ↗

— Melanie Thernstrom

#uncertainty

For as long as one has no further point of reference, apart from the position of the maximum, the wavelength thus remains uncertain by an integral factor. ↗

— Max von Laue

#factor #further #integral #long #maximum

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#certain #chimneys #constant #easier #ever

The Supreme Court has a very light backlog. They leave a lot of splits among the circuits, a lot of uncertainty. And I think they ought to work a lot harder. ↗

— Arlen Specter

#circuits #court #harder #i #i think

Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying ↗

— Thomas Paine

#death #dying #uncertain #death

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there unable to decide the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they popped to the ground at my feet. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

#death

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