All Quotes By Tag: Uncertainty

“Stored personal memories along with handed down collective memories of stories, legends, and history allows us to collate our interactions with a physical and social world and develop a personal code of survival. In essence, we all become self-styled sages, creating our own book of wisdom based upon our studied observations and practical knowledge gleaned from living and learning. What we quickly discover is that no textbook exist how to conduct our life, because the world has yet to produce a perfect person – an ideal observer – whom is capable of handing down a concrete exemplar of epistemic virtues. We each draw upon the guiding knowledge, theories, and advice available for us in order to explore the paradoxes, ironies, inconsistencies, and the absurdities encountered while living in a supernatural world. We mold our personal collection of information into a practical practicum how to live and die. Each day we define and redefine who we are, determine how we will react today, and chart our quest into an uncertain future.”

“People too often tolerate uncertainty prior to taking action; worse, some people believe that omniscience or infallibility are prerequisites for being certain, so they conclude that certainty (and therefore knowledge) is never possible. To any person who proclaims that “you can never be certain of anything”, ask them: “are you sure?” and watch what happens.”

“Progress daily in your own uncertainty. Live in awareness of the questions.”

“We must all be professors of the jungle.”

“Time stops for no one, no matter how unsure we are of the future.”

“Ten Keys To Success: Number 0; there is no easy or guaranteed recipe. Number 11: some else’s path to it will not be yours.”

“There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.”

“What word or expression do you most overuse? Re-reading a collection of my stuff, I was rather startled to find that it was ‘perhaps.”

“Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, and yet an adventure too. The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push–usually a big one–or we will not go.”

“Give your heart permission to let go of the need for certainty and leave space for the unknown.”

“In truth, Thomas was being a faithful disciple of Jesus, who warned His disciples that “many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray” (Matt. 24:5). Indeed, Jesus affirms those who believe without seeing because such belief takes great faith. But that in no way suggests we should ignore evidence when it is available, as though doing so makes us more faithful. This impulse, combined with an often uncritical biblicism, not only neglects God’s command to love him with our minds, but leads us into unnecessary divisiveness and shallow literalism that blinds us to the deeper truth of Scripture. Therefore, during this process of self-emptying, we must be aware of and honest with our uncertainties. While we should never throw around our doubt with rebellious defiance, neither should we view our genuine questions and uncertainties as liabilities. Sometimes allowing ourselves to question deeply held beliefs opens us up to discovering that we were, in fact, in error, offering us the opportunity for more faithful understanding. Other times we discover that our fears are unfounded, returning to our former beliefs without doubt, yet stronger for it.”

“There are things that will happen to you and there is nothing you can do about this. Isn’t it exciting beyond belief?”

“If I knew what to doI’d do more than write a song for you”

“He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the axe on to my back.He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body.GOOD MORNING.Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat.’Are you Death?’IT’S THE SCYTHE, ISN’T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE.’I’m going to die?’POSSIBLY.’Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?’OH, YES. IT’S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT’S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.’What’s that?’I’M NOT SURE.’That’s very helpful.”

“You never know these days. Uninvited guests may force you to take an unplanned trip to an unknown destination; doesn’t hurt to be in your Sunday clothes.”