Certain Quotes

Well, it gives, certainly to my father, who is the one that suffered the most in our family, and understanding of how the ideals of a country are only as good as the people who give it flesh and blood.

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.

Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.

There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.

There’s a certain level of pageantry with ‘Idol,’ and in order to work the show, you kind of have to feed into it.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

Events of human origin are uncertain, but all is regulated and governed by the incalculable power of God, inspiring us not through drunken fury nor by frantic movement, but through the influences of the stars.

Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends.