Certainty

About Certainty

Notable quotes

“No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.”
— Charles Caleb Colton, in Lacon: Many Things in Few Words (1820-22, 1866), 314
“A common fallacy in much of the adverse criticism to which science is subjected today is that it claims certainty, infallibility and complete emotional objectivity. It would be more nearly true to say that it is based upon wonder, adventure and hope.”
— Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, as quoted in E. J. Bowen's obituary of Hinshelwood, Chemistry in Britain (1967), Vol. 3, 536
“We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.”
— C. S. Lewis, in Christian Reflections (1967), 111
“What certainty can there be in a Philosophy which consists in as many Hypotheses as there are Phenomena to be explained. To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”
— Sir Isaac Newton, as quoted in Richard S. Westfall, The Life of Isaac Newton (1994), 256
“In almost all philosophy doubt has been the goad and certainty has been the goal.”
— Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), page 13 of the 1958 Readers Union edition.
“If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, , #115

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.