Uncertainty

Uncertaintyis a term used in subtly different ways in a wide number of fields, including physics, philosophy, statistics, economics, finance, insurance, psychology, sociology, engineering, and information science. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements already made, or to the unknown.

Quotes

If you aren’t in themoment,you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back topainandregret.~Jim Carrey

• If you aren’t in themoment,you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back topainandregret.
  • Jim Carrey,in"Carrey: 'Life Is Too Beautiful': Star Talks About Bouts With Depression And His Spirituality"60 Minutes(21 November 2004).

• There's no earthly way of knowing
  Which direction we are going
  There's no knowing where we're rowing
  Or which way the river's flowing
  Is it raining?
  Is it snowing?
  Is a hurricane a-blowing?
  Not a speck of light is showing
  So the danger must be growing
  Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
  Is the grisly reaper mowing?
  Yes, the danger must be growing
  'Cause the rowers keep on rowing
  And they're certainly not showing
  Any signs that they are slowing!
  • Willie Wonka,Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,Roald Dahl,Pg. 84-85 (1964)

• From that point, my universe went on crumbling; new cracks appeared all the time. I could see that the pleasantsecuritiesof childhood, all of those warm little human emotions, all of those trivial aims and purposes that we allow to rule our lives, were an illusion. We were like sheep munching grass, unaware that the butcher's lorry is already on its way. I got used to living with a deep, underlying feeling of uncertainty that no one around me seemed to share. It was rather like living on death row.
  • Colin WilsoninAlien Dawn,pp. 12-13 (1998)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported inHoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations(1922), p. 826.

• Quis scit, an adjiciant hodiernæ crastina summæ
  Tempora di superi?
  • Who knows whether thegodswill add to-morrow to the present hour?
  • Horace,Carmina,IV. 7. 17.

• Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo:
  Et subito casu, quæ valuere, ruunt.
  • Allhumanthings hang on a slender thread: the strongest fall with a sudden crash.
  • Ovid,Epistolæ Ex Ponto,IV. 3. 35.

• Nothingis but what is not.
  • William Shakespeare,Macbeth(1605), Act I, scene 3, line 141.

• This
  I ever held worse than all certitude,
  Toknownot what the worst ahead might be.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne,Marino Faliero,Act V.

• Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc illuc impellitur.
  • When themindis in a state of uncertainty the smallest impulse directs it to either side.
  • Terence,Andria,I, 5, 32.