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Doubts and Uncertainties Quotes and Quotations
 Unrest and uncertainty are our lot.  Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable ... we must be content to creep along the ground, and can never soar. Nothing, perhaps, is strange, once you have accepted life itself, the great strange business which includes all lesser strangeness. The shortest period of time lies between the minute you put some money away for a rainy day and the unexpected arrival of rain. Our lives are never certain, even for an hour. Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath. - Huang Po I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Where will I be five years from now? I delight in not knowing. The longing for certainty ... is in every human mind. But certainty is generally illusion. No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. We are not certain, we are never certain. We live in an epoch in which the solid ground of our preconceived ideas shakes daily under our certain feet. All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgment of probabilities, and not on certainties. The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. There is nothing certain in a man's life but that he must lose it. Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this, our life! When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. You are all you will ever have for certain. Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cock-sure of many things that were not so. A reasonable probability is the only certainty. Doubt is not a pleasant state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. - Voltaire Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities, the strength, the wisdom, the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen. To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything, or nothing, about it. Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain. We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight. There is nothing certain about war except that one side won't win. There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain. The only certainty is that nothing is certain. I'm often wrong, but never in doubt. There is one thing certain, namely, that we can have nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain. Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope, and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning. The demand is for certainty is a sign of weakness. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that.... Accept that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing. Only a weak mind seeks ultimate answers. When nothing is sure, everything is possible. He who forecasts all perils will never sail the sea. There is a time for departure, even when there's no certain place to go. One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of shore for a very long time. To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do. Faith ... acts promptly and boldly on the occasion, on slender evidence. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. The successful man is he who, when he sees that no further certainty is attainable, promptly decides on the most probable side, as if he were completely sure it was right. Not seeing is half-believing. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt with the heart. There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning. I am a woman who understands the necessity of an impulse whose goal or origin still lie beyond me. To end with certainty, we must begin with doubting. Gardening is an exercise in optimism. In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope. No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye. Faith hasn't got no eyes, but she's long-legged. Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty. Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so. If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. I said here's the river I want to flow on, here's the direction I want to go, and put my boat in. I was ready for the river to take unexpected turns and present obstacles. The future is no more uncertain than the present. Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and make our plans with confidence. Every time I think that I'm getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens. Many live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life. ... The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. Thank God for the unknown future. I think I look good out there. I'm strong, powerful, and artistic. But I have my doubts as much as anyone. If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room full of people, I would say to myself, "You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation. ... Why should you be frightened?" Action will remove the doubts that theory cannot solve. To Death I yield, but not to Doubt, who slays before! Soon after a heart-wrung decision, something inevitably occurs to cast doubt on your choice. Holding steady against that doubt usually proves your decision. Doubt breeds doubt. It's the moment you think you can't that you realize you can. From a shy, timid girl I had become a woman of resolute character, who could no longer be frightened by the struggle with troubles. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend. Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized. When one devotes oneself to meditation, mental burdens, unnecessary worries, and wandering thoughts drop off one by one; life seems to run smoothly and pleasantly. A student may now depend on intuition to make decisions. As one acts on intuition, second thought, with its dualism, doubt and hesitation, does not arise. In doubt, fear is the worst of prophets. - Statius The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. In case of doubt, decide in favor of what is correct. Faith and doubt both are needed, not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve. Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt. A man's doubts and fears are his worst enemies. When in doubt, do it. Yes, I have doubted. I have wandered off the path, but I always return. It is intuitive, an intrinsic, built-in sense of direction. I seem always to find my way home. A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. Doubt whom you will, but never yourself. Self distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the assurance of strength, there is strength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers. Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever. To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible. Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing. I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of "The Look." When nothing is sure, everything is possible. Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity. The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. All uncertainly is fruitful... so long as it is accompanied by the wish to understand. I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be. When we are not sure, we are alive. Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worst. The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty, not knowing what comes next. In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope. 
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