Pastoral Resources

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

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose.

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.

Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.

From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

It is to be feared that those who emigrate to New South Wales, generally anticipate too great facility in their future operations and certainty of success in conducting them; but they should recollect that competency cannot be obtained without labour.

Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.

From this bestial view that the human mind consists of only sense certainty, pleasure and pain, Locke developed an equally bestial theory of the nation. Man originally existed in a State of Nature of complete liberty.

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

I would say that without any doubt he's the killer - the law says beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty which I - there's no question that he was the killer of President Kennedy.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.