Certainty Quotes

We want to have certainties and no doubts- results and no experiments- without even seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt and results only thorough experiment.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom.

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

But to me all sciences seem vain and full of error that are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, and do not terminate in an actual experience.

I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.

Your imagination is ten times more potent than your willpower. Unleashed, it provides a sense of certainty and tenacious vision that goes far beyond any limitation of the past.

Demand me nothing: what you know, you know.

He who does not understand the supreme certainty of mathematics is wallowing in confusion.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.

Words alone are certain good.

For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.

The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.

It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.

We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.

If you have to ask yourself whether or not you love a girl or you love a boy, forget it. You don't.

Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

Be confident, not certain

I do not see why I should e’er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.

The sure path can only lead to death.

Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery.

I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.

We come to recognize that playfulness, as a philosophical stance, can be very serious indeed; and moreover, that it possesses an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule and hostility in those among us who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint.

I never listen to debates. They are dreadful things indeed. The plain truth is that I am not a fair man, and don't want to hear both sides. On all known subjects, ranging from aviation to xylophone-playing, I have fixed and invariable ideas. They have not changed since I was four or five.

They would not find me changed from him they knew - only more sure of all I thought was true.

I can feel this heart inside me and I conclude it exists. I can touch this world and I also conclude that it exists. All my knowledge ends at this point. The rest is hypothesis.

...the reason for [this age's] anxiety and unrest is because in one direction, 'truth' increases in scope and quantity - via science and technology - while in the other, certainty and confidence steadily decline. Our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good.

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

Some people get certainty by working harder and saying I'm going to master something. Some people get certainty by lowering their expectations, going 'it will never work. And they lose their dreams, but they get their needs. The needs are not like goals. They're not like belief systems that are built into you.

I don't have to know everything that's gonna happen, I know enough.

If you look around the world and I can tell you right now that the majority of the planet is focused on certainty and significance. And those two absolutely guarantee unhappiness. Because if you're driven by significance, it doesn't matter what you achieve, it's never enough.

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

You want to be a hero? Learn to create certainty in the face of fear.

What difference, if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I am. For he who is not, assuredly cannot be mistaken; and therefore I am, if I am mistaken. Therefore because I am if I am mistaken, how am I mistaken that I am, when it is sure that I am, if I am mistaken.

Feed and strengthen your body. Fear is physical. When you lift weights or go for a sprint, that energy flows back into your body and restores you to certainty.

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.

He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows.

We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason.

The person with the most certainty in a given situation will influence the other.

Doubting things go ill often hurts moreThan to be sure they do; for certaintiesEither are past remedies, or, timely knowing,The remedy then born.

What can we say with certainty?

Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had?

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.

People have a need for certainty - and that need for certainty is in every human being, certainty that you can avoid pain, certainty that you can at least be comfortable. It's a survival instinct.

If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.

Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.

Upon consideration of the central question of the moon's toughness there can be little doubt. It is hella tough.

He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.

If your knowledge of fire has been turned to certainty by words alone, then seek to be cooked by the fire itself. Don't abide in borrowed certainty. There is no real certainty until you burn; if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

When two people meet, as long as there is any form of rapport maintained, the person with the most certainty will eventually influence ther other person.

If you believe you are right, or you believe you are wrong, you're right. Whenever you are certain about it, you will support it. Remember that.

We are not certain, we are never certain. If we were we could reach some conclusions, and we could, at last, make others take us seriously.In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

But O, sick children of the world,Of all the many changing thingsIn dreary dancing past us whirled,To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,Words alone are certain good.

If you are driven by certainty you can't grow. If you are driven by certainty if somebody messes with you, you can get very intense, even violent, depending upon the person's personality.