Certainty Quotes

And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me! The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we, on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation. ~ Catherine Of Genoa

If you are seeking for security, certainty, your eyes will become closed. And you will be less and less surprised and you will lose the capacity to wonder. Once you lose the capacity to wonder, you have lost religion. Religion is the opening of your wondering heart. Religion is a receptivity for the mysterious that surrounds us. Don't seek security; don't seek advice on how to live your life. ~ Rajneesh

When you're 100 percent certain, you're too late. ~ Charles W. Robinson

He could feel certainty draining away. And he'd always been certain. ~ Terry Pratchett

Certainty is a cruel mindset. It hardens our minds against possibility. ~ Ellen Langer

In a world of moral certainty, the unthinkable becomes permissible. ~ Cullen Murphy

Voltaire rejects all systems, and suspects that "every chief of a sect in philosophy has been a little of a quack."

"The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers what novels are for women."

"It is only charlatans who are certain. We know nothing of first principles. It is truly extravagant to define God, angels, and minds, and to know precisely why God formed the world, when we do not know why we move our arms at will."

"Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. ~ Will Durant

A testimony is a most precious possession because it is not acquired by logic or reason alone, it cannot be purchased with earthly possessions, and it cannot be given as a present or inherited from our ancestors. We cannot depend on the testimonies of other people. We need to know for ourselves. President Gordon B. Hinckley said, 'Every Latter-day Saint has the responsibility to know for himself or herself with a certainty beyond doubt that Jesus is the resurrected, living Son of the living God. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

That which most concerns and worries you - your survival - is the only certainty you have. ~ Richard Bach

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty; but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism--a very different and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main has always been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing out those who care in darkness and blood. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The reason, as I had learned from my father, is that there is no certainty in death. Because there is no beginning or end, there is no way to measure how long your time. ~ Terry Goodkind

There have been times when the church seemed afraid, but she is no longer. Analyze, dissect, use your microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter is reached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is made clear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she once knew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behind all thought and matter only one central idea
that idea which the church has never ceased to embody
I AM! ~ Henry Adams

The wild nature has a vast integrity to it. It means to establish one's territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's own behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times in our economy. ~ George W. Bush

What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, ~ Sara Miles

The inner lawyer, the rose-colored mirror, naive realism, and the myth of pure evil - these mechanisms all conspire to weave for us a web of significance upon which angels and demons fight it out. Our ever-judging minds then give us constant flashes of approval and disapproval, along with the certainty that we are on the side of the angels. From this vantage point it all seems so silly, all this moralism, righteousness, and hypocrisy. It's beyond silly; it is tragic, for it suggests that human beings will never achieve a state of lasting peace and harmony. ~ Jonathan Haidt

You don't have to shine to prove that you are a star, but you need to reason to show that you have the ability. We can think that we have all the answers in the world even though we don't have it, how we can feel jealous of something or someone that was never ours, but we must have a single certainty: that we must take a risk for what we want to achieve and we must never fail to show our opinion . ~ Abraham Schneersohn

I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. ~ Yehuda Berg

In everything that was to follow, everyone claimed to have insight into what the Prophet thought and what he wanted. Yet in the lack of a clear and unequivocal designation of his successor, nobody could prove it beyond any shadow of doubt. However convinced they may have been that they were right, there were always those who would maintain otherwise. Certainty was a matter of faith rather than fact. ~ Anonymous

You have to run risks. There are no certainties in war. There is a precipice on either side of you - a precipice of caution and a precipice of over-daring. ~ Winston Churchill

Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences. ~ Bertrand Russell

They also developed a constructive doctrine, concerning degrees of probability: although we can never be justified in feeling certainty, some things are more likely to be true than others. Probability should be our guide in practice, since it is reasonable to act on the most probable of possible hypotheses. This view is one with which most modern philosophers would agree. ~ Anonymous

The love of anything is the offspring of knowledge, love being more fervent in proportion as knowledge is more certain. And this certainty springs from a complete knowledge of all parts which united compose the whole of the thing which out to be loved. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

She was afraid of us moving in together. With Mark, domestic intimacy had become domestic claustrophobia; and had riddled romance (though she never quite said this) like woodworm. It wasn't that she was resistant to the glamourlessness of stray toenails and washing up and underpants and mug-rings and hoovering and boredom; on the contrary: it was that she was horrified by her own willingness to sink so deeply into the comfort of such details. A no nonsense streak in her identified the ordinary with truth, the exotic with delusion. She and Mark had delighted in dehumbugging their own romance, had (she confessed) Larkinized themselves into mundanity addicts. In Mark's case (she suspected) because he knew deep down he had no magic in him; in her own because she knew deep down that she had too much (no nonsense streak or not), and that to release it would be to lose him - and perhaps herself. Therefore they had wallowed together in cosiness, both suffering, Mark for fear of her leaving him, her for fear (certainty, actually) that the romantic inside her would rise up and smash their deadening familiarity to pieces. ~ Glen Duncan

Offer me?" A shrill note of indignation entered her voice. "Young man, there are three things that make Britain great. The first is our inability at playing sports."
How does that make Britain great?"
"Despite the certainty of loss, we try anyway with the absolute conviction that this year will be the one, regardless of all evidence to the contrary!"
I raised my eyebrows, but that simply meant I could see my blood more clearly, so looked away and said nothing.
"The second," she went on, "is the BBC. It may be erratic, tabloid, under-funded and unreliable, but without the World Service, obscure Dickens adaptions, the Today Program and Doctor Who, I honestly believe that the cultural and communal capacity of this country would have declined to the level of the apeman, largely owing to the advent of the mobile phone!"
"Oh," I said, feeling that something was expected. "Oh" was enough.
"And lastly, we have the NHS!"
"This is an NHS service?" I asked incredulously.
"I didn't say that, I merely pointed out that the NHS makes Britain great. Now lie still. ~ Kate Griffin

There is never any certainty of the unseen. We hope. That's what we do as Christians, and that's what I do with unicorns. Maybe like C. S. Lewis's jewel, that glimpse of a unicorn I sometimes see is a glimpse of Jesus. ~ Colleen Coble

When you have a child, you start to dream of how this kid will grow up and make you proud. The only thing you can predict with 100% certainty is that the reality will diverge somehow from that dream. Some of our children will disappoint us by not being the scholars we hoped they would be. Some children will disappoint us by not being the athletes we hoped they would be. Some will disappoint us by coming out and telling us they are gay and they won't give us grandchildren ... the real question is not, what book can I read, what technique can I use to raise a perfect child? The real question is how will you handle that gap between the child you dreamt of having and the real child growing up in your home ... What I have learned is that any religion, if you do it wrong, will leave people feeling condemned and dismissed and unworthy and any religion, if you do it right, will leave people feeling cleansed and firmed. (118) Rabbi Harold Kushner ~ Carol Lynn Pearson

there is anything to be learned from the conspiracy - other than when in doubt, bet on George Washington - it is to beware the pitfalls of certainty. ~ Sarah Vowell

The need for certainty is the greatest disease the Mind faces ~ Robert Greene

I believe that we must align our actions with our highest principles. No matter the outcome, we will not have failed if we act from our best intentions."
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Captain," Chakotay said with equal certainty.
"So is the road to peace," Cambridge observed. ~ Kirsten Beyer

Do you remember, Meir, that epigram quoted in the name of Rabbi Johanan ben Zaccai: 'There is no truth unless there be a faith on which it may rest'? Ironically enough the only sure principle I have achieved is this which I have known almost all my life. And it is so. For all truths rest ultimately on some act of faith, geometry on axioms, the sciences on the assumptions of the objective existence and orderliness of the world of nature. In every realm one must lay down postulates or he shall have nothing at all. So with morality and religion. Faith and reason are not antagonists. On the contrary, salvation is through the commingling of the two, the former to establish first premises, the latter to purify them of confusion and to draw the fullness of their implications. It is not certainty which one acquires so, only plausibility, but that is the best we can hope for. ~ Milton Steinberg

Death is both a certainty and an unknown, Chuck says. It's hard to get a grip on it. ~ Abigail Thomas

He felt a wonderful certainty. The impossible, he thought, the impossible is about to happen again. ~ Kate DiCamillo

If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are "crying for the moon." We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. ~ Alan W. Watts

Though what could anyone really say these days with one hundred percent certainty? ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

In the other room Rateau was looking at the canvas, completely blank, in the center of which Jonas had merely written in very small letters a word that could be made out, but without any certainty as to whether it should be read solitary or solidary. ~ Albert Camus

Aren't you afraid, Renuka?' he asked in the wee hours of the morning looking deep into her eyes.
'Afraid of what?'
'Afraid of ghosts? Afraid of death?'
'Death is a certainty that will come to all of us one day. So why to be afraid of something that we cannot avoid? We do not remember our birth, so we won't remember our death as well. I am, instead, scared of more real threats, real people, and their real feelings. ~ Debajani Mohanty

They ask me what I think of food. I tell them I don't know, but I do. I know everything about it. I feel like I'm at war. It's all about the battle. I am always aware of what I am doing. I watch myself watch the plate, I watch my hand lift my fork. I watch the mouth that opens like a cunt, the fork that slides in like a dick. That fucks me every time I swallow. I watch every second. I savor it all. The object, however, is to not let them know that you know this. Because if they do, they will take it away. Not the food, of course, but the knowing. Your absolute certainty that you will win. That's the real war, not the food, but the fuck and the desire of that fuck that I can control and I can deny. That I can destroy. You destroy the hunger, you destroy the desire, you destroy the need, you destroy the girl. The Me. And once I'm gone, what's left to fuck? ~ Jillian Medoff

There was the anxiety that one day would not follow the next, combined with the certainty that it would. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

But you can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, "Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board." It's as though we're sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks - masters of the universe - and suddenly say, "Oops, somebody discovered something!"
No. We're always at the drawing board. If you're not at the drawing board, you're not making discoveries. You're not a scientist; you're something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion. In the Jewish literature of the first century the existence of Jesus is not attested to with any certainty, and in the Greek and Latin literature of the same period there is no evidence for it at all. Of the two passages in his Antiquities in which the Jewish writer Josephus makes incidental mention of Jesus, one was undoubtedly interpolated by Christian copyists. The first pagan witness to His existence is Tacitus, who, during the reign of Trajan in the second decade of the second century A.D., reports in his Annals (XV.44) that the founder of the "Christian" sect (which Nero accused of causing the great fire at Rome) was executed under the government of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Since ~ Albert Schweitzer

writing home"

here in the wilderness of australia
writing home becomes easy
in spite of the spreading wild fires
there is less heat, more certainty.

writing home, writing this
i think of those without real homes–
our city, people say, provides houses
which do not, often, bring one home. ~ Kirpal Singh

To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting. ~ Stanislaus I

The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands. ~ Steven Erikson

The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding. ~ Rem Koolhaas

I have found that the platonic affection
in friendships and familial
love for children can be relied upon
with certainty to lift the bruised soul
and repair the wounded spirit ~ Maya Angelou

Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou

But all that was as automatic as her beating heart, as subconscious as breathing - what she felt above all was the fierce tingling certainty of being alive. ~ Lisa Verge Higgins

His lips brushed my cheek, and I found it hard to concentrate."I lied earlier."
"About what."
His hands slid to my lower back."When I said you looked great? I wasn't completely honest."
That was not what I expected. I turned my head the slightest and then bit back a gasp. Our mouths were centimeters apart and I thought about Brit's certainty that he would kiss me tonight. I forced my tongue to work."You don't think I look great?"
"No,"he said, his expression serious as one hand followed the line of my spine, resting below the edges of my hair. He lowered his head so that his temple pressed against mine.
"You look beautiful tonight."
My breath caught."Thank you. ~ J. Lynn

John felt grounded again. He remembered his favorite Bible story, the one about Peter getting out of the boat and walking on water. The big fisherman was walking along quite nicely until he looked at the waves and began to sink. As much as possible, John tried to live his life without looking at the waves. But when he did, when the lives of his grown children caused his faith to waver even a little, God always sent someone to illustrate the words of Christ: "You of little faith . . . why did you doubt?" John felt certain that in this, his most trying season yet, the Lord had sent Pastor Mark to fill that role. It was a certainty that kept his eyes where they belonged - off the waves and straight ahead to the outstretched arms of Jesus. ~ Karen Kingsbury

[Mathematics] is security. Certainty. Truth. Beauty. Insight. Structure. Architecture. I see mathematics, the part of human knowledge that I call mathematics, as one thing-one great, glorious thing. Whether it is differential topology, or functional analysis, or homological algebra, it is all one thing ... They are intimately interconnected, they are all facets of the same thing. That interconnection, that architecture, is secure truth and is beauty. That's what mathematics is to me. ~ Paul Halmos

Faith is the belief that certain outcomes will happen, and hope is the belief that certain outcomes can happen. So when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice," he is speaking from a place of faith. He is confident that justice is inevitable, even if it may come in another lifetime. Faith is often rooted in the belief of a higher power, in God. Hope on the other hand would mean reframing the statement to say, "The arc of the moral universe is long, and it will bend toward justice, if we bend it. Faith is rooted in certainty, hope is rooted in possibility, and they both require their own different kinds of work. ~ DeRay Mckesson

The reason the founders chafed at the idea of an American standing army and vested the power of war making in the cumbersome legislature was not to disadvantage us against future enemies, but to disincline us toward war as a general matter ... With citizen-soldiers, with the certainty of a vigorous political debate over the use of a military subject to politicians' control, the idea was for us to feel it- uncomfortably- every second we were at war. But after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war that they left us ... war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops. ~ Rachel Maddow

It is clear, then, that the desire for certainty shapes our spaces of possibility, our perceptions, and our lives both personally and professionally. Usually, this need saves us. But it also sabotages us. This produces an ongoing tension between what we might think of as our conscious selves and our automatic selves. To overcome our inborn reflex that pushes us to seek certainty (sometimes at any cost), we must lead with our conscious selves and tell ourselves a new story, one that with insistent practice will change our future past and even our physiological responses. We must create internal and external ecologies that… celebrate doubt!
This means the biggest obstacle to deviation and seeing differently isn't actually our environment as such, or our" intelligence, or even - ironically - the challenge of reaching the mythical "aha" moment. Rather, it is the nature of human perception itself, and in particular the perceived need for knowing. Yet the deep paradox is that the mechanisms of perception are also the process by which we can unlock powerful new perceptions and ways to deviate. Which means that mechanism of generating a perception is the blocker… and the process of creating perception is the enabler of creativity ~ Beau Lotto

I like the scientific spirit - the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine - it always keeps the way beyond open - always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake - after a wrong guess. ~ Walt Whitman

Of Virginia Woolf: The talent of this generation which is most certain of survival. ~ Rebecca West

Certainty shuts down possibilities and keeps us small. ~ L.R.W. Lee

What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It's a sure thing! It's sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles. ~ Nora Ephron

Why do you grieve so uselessly? Every uncertainty is the result of a certainty. There is nothing in this world really to be lamented. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

Change is the investor's only certainty. ~ Thomas Rowe Price, Jr.

Remember, Lucius, that everything you learn is already a part of you, even to the Godhead Itself. Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing"--there the Maestro stopped and shuddered, as though he had a presentiment--"fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing. For everything that does evil is in pain. Will you remember those things? ~ Clive Barker

We may find ourselves in a role similar to that of a gardener as we cultivate a space in which healing can naturally unfold.

In terms of neurobiology, this stance encourages us to lean into the reassuring awareness that our systems already contain seeds awaiting our attention.

For some examples, we humans are always seeking the warmest possible attachments we can imagine (Cozolino, Siegel), our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other (Badenoch, Cozolino, Schore), emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust (Beckes & Coan) and even our nervous systems have a preference for the social engagement circuitry that sustains connection (Porges).

With this kind of support from the biology inherent in both practitioner and patient, our bodies may begin to open into a welcoming state as others come towards us, with a sense of partnership being established rather than someone doing something to us.

However this also means letting go of the potential certainty that comes from feeling we are in charge. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

Death is the only certainty in life. The moment we are born, our journey towards our final destination begins. It's the beauty or the ugliness of that journey that defines our life; the distances covered varying in each case. Every flower that has bloomed in the free breeze of spring has to wither in the cruel icy autumn draught. ~ Anurag Shourie

I felt the heat flood my neck and I could sense myself blushing. I stared at my shoes. I knew that Adam was looking at me now with as much certainty as I knew that if I looked up he was going to kiss me. And it took me by surprise how much I wanted to be kissed by him, to realize that I'd thought about it so often that I'd memorized the exact shape of his lips, that I'd imagined running my finger down the cleft of his chin. My eyes flickered upward. Adam was there waiting for me. That was how it started. ~ Gayle Forman

To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it. ~ Hugh Laurie

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. ~ Francis Bacon

Neither the intensity of your feelings nor the certainty of your convictions is any assurance that you are right. ~ Michael Josephson

This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. ~ Albert Camus

There was so calm, so natural, so total a certainty in the sound of her voice that the mere sound seemed to carry an immense persuasiveness. ~ Ayn Rand

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing. ~ Victor Hugo

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

When in doubt, favor compassion
over certainty or tradition. ~ Ivan M. Granger

In the mental disturbance and effort of writing, what sustains you is the certainty that on every page there is something left unsaid. ~ Cesare Pavese

What is certainty but the refuge of those whose faith is not strong enough to entertain doubt. ~ Robert Breault

May your wonder always exceed your certainty. ~ David Wolpe

She lives as if she is constantly on the brink of some great fulfillment. As if she were waiting for Prince Charming to take her away "from all this". All what? The solitude of living inside her own soul? The certainty of being herself instead of half of something else? ~ Erica Jong

Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

There should be no room in your life for regret. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?" She ~ Yaa Gyasi

I will repeat a technique until it is mastered, no matter when that will be. One certainty though: it will be. ~ Georges St-Pierre

A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. ~ John Locke

Between certainty and the real, an ancient enmity. ~ Jane Hirshfield

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way. ~ A. C. Benson

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 than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing. ~ Isaac Newton

I had arrived at an understanding of faith that had far more to do with trust than with certainty. I trusted God to be God even if I could not say who God was for sure. I trusted God to sustain the world although I could not say for sure how that happened. I trusted God to hold me and those I loved, in life and in death, without giving me one shred of conclusive evidence that it was so. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

I can say without absolute certainty that you are the only person in this world that deserves the moon, the ocean, and the stars. You are the only exception. You deserve them and if it takes me our entire lives to give them to you I won't settle until they are yours. ~ Fisher Amelie

Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself; and there was left only a brain which played with ideas, and a body that went delicately down pleasant ways. And I could not believe as my fellows believed, nor could I love them, nor could I detect anything in aught they said or did save their exceeding folly: for I had lost their cordial common faith of what use they made of half-hours and months and years ... I had lost faith in the importance of my own actions, too. There was a little time of which the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. ~ James Branch Cabell

That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living. ~ Virginia Woolf

And yet what she has said--the lying brain--this is familiar; this has happened to him. Not exactly like this, not utter terrifying madness, but he knows his brain has told him things he has traveled around the world to forget. That the mind cannot be trusted is a certainty. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

Not doubt, CERTAINTY is what drives one insane ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

He reached over and pulled her to him, and she didn't stiffen but relaxed in the hug as his arms encircled her small waist. The hug lingered, without either of them speaking. Maggie felt emotions she wasn't used to feeling, and they were so overwhelming. Her senses clamored and, as she struggled to make sense of her emotions, the breaking of dawn could not have been more obvious for Maggie. She realized with such certainty, that she felt safe. Without stopping herself, she laid her head where it met his chest, right next to his heart, her whole being venting, and so they stood frozen in time like a statue, till the moment was broken by someone clearing their throat. ~ Sonia Valencia Singh

Certainty abolishes hope, and robs us of renewal. ~ Neil Postman

Find one person to trust - there need only be one. With them, share every shame, every secret and listen to theirs… with love. Bare hearts and souls until there is understanding. Of a certainty, such honest exposure is the first step toward happiness.
- André Chevalier ~ Nikki Sex

The attitude of mourning is a faithless attitude, an ignorant attitude. The more we know, the more fully we shall trust, for we shall feel with utter certainty that we and our dead are alike in the hands of perfect Power and perfect Wisdom, directed by perfect Love. ~ Charles Webster Leadbeater

To evoke another great phrase of the American revolutionary heritage - widely though inconclusively attributed to Thomas Jefferson - the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Such a phrase is merely trite, however, unless we consider its deeper implications. For the French revolutionaries, as for so many regimes that have succeeded them across the world up to the present day, the call for vigilance against enemies, both external and internal, was the first step on the road to the loss of liberty, and lives.

Of far more significance, and the true and tragic lesson of the epic descent into The Terror, is the summons to vigilance against ourselves - that we should not assume that we are righteous, and our enemies evil; that we can see clearly, and to others are blinded by malice or folly; that we can abrogate the fragile rights of others in the name of our own certainty and all will be well regardless.

If we do not honor the message of human rights born in the revolutions of 1776 and 1786, as the French in their case most certainly failed to do, we too are on the road to The Terror. ~ David Andress

In the midst of the flurry - clarity.
In the midst of the storm - calm.
In the midst of divided interests - certainty.
In the many roads - a certain choice. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

I was miserable and under tremendous pressure, believing I would burn in hell for all eternity because I couldn't stop myself from thinking bad things about people - not to mention the fact that I was entering puberty and knew with absolute certainty that my uncontrollable lust was earning me a one-way trip to the Lake of Fire. I had recently discovered masturbation and applied myself to the act with the utmost diligence. I couldn't seem to stop myself, and afterward would pray to God, begging his forgiveness. I had no idea that it was normal to have such urges, for no one ever explained such things to me. ~ Damien Echols

There was no way to know that certainty would one day become a luxury, too. ~ Therese Anne Fowler

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS works as a metaphor for our central human experience: we have no way to objectively know about anything, no way to move forward with certainty, and yet move forward we must. We stumble through life, trying to find our own way, not knowing whom to listen to, whom to trust, whom to suspect, what to believe. But in that process we discover our most authentic selves. ~ Norman Buckley

There are no means of attaining faith and certainty except through the Qur'an. ~ Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

Bertrand Russell writes that the painful thing about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision. ~ Rollo May