In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

Truth comes out in wine.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

There is always something new out of Africa.

The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.

Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit Nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work.

From the end spring new beginnings.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Home is where the heart is.

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.

No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.

Hardly can it be judged whether it be better for mankind to believe that the gods have regard of us, or that they have none, considering that some men have no respect and reverence for the gods, and others so much that their superstition is a shame to them.

How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful, even, would life be if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth: in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!

Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking from vessels of obscene form!

Of all wonders, this is among the greatest, that some fresh waters close by the sea spring forth as out of pipes: for the nature of the waters also ceaseth not from miraculous properties.

Our forefathers regarded as a prodigy the passage of the Alps: first by Hannibal and, more recently, by the Cimbri; but at the present day, these very mountains are cut asunder to yield us a thousand different marbles; promontories are thrown open to the sea; and the face of Nature is being everywhere reduced to a level.

The invention of money opened a new field to human avarice by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest while the owner passes a life of idleness.

The world and that which, by another name, men have thought good to call Heaven (under the compass of which all things are covered), we ought to believe, in all reason, to be a divine power, eternal, immense, without beginning, and never to perish.

To seek after any shape of God, and to assign a form and image to Him, is a proof of man's folly. For God, whosoever he be (if haply there be any other but the world itself), and in what part soever resident, all sense He is, all sight, all hearing: He is the whole of the life and of the soul, all of Himself.

We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent!

What is there more unruly than the sea, with its winds, its tornadoes, and its tempests? And yet in what department of her works has Nature been more seconded by the ingenuity of man than in this, by his inventions of sails and of oars?

How innocent how happy how truly delightful even would life be if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth in a word nothing but what is provided ready to our hands

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written in writing what deserves to be read and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Let honor be to us as strong an obligation as necessity is to others.

Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother.

In wine, there's truth.

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.

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

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.

I feel, sometimes, as the renaissance man must have felt in finding new riches at every point and in the certainty that unexplored areas of knowledge and experience await at every turn.

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

The Resistance is a moral certainty, not a poetic one. The true poet never uses words in order to punish someone. His judgment belongs to a creative order; it is not formulated as a prophetic scripture.

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

There is no certainty; there is only adventure.

We can say with certainty - or 90% probability - that the new industries that are about to be born will have nothing to do with information.

If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.

I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.

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

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?

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.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.