A Quote by William Congreve

Would any thing but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are joys of life; security is an insipid thing; and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.

William Congreve

Quote Topics

Any Chase Complain Expectation Folly Insipid Joys Life Madman Overtaking Possessing Security Thing Uncertainty Wish Would

Quote Author

William Congreve
English - Poet
January 24, 1670 - January 19, 1729

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.

William Congreve

Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of security....The new security will be a belief that ...if this doesn't work out you could do something else. You are your own security.

Charles Handy

The consumer is going through a period around the world of uncertainty - whether geopolitical uncertainty, economic uncertainty - and that makes them a little nervous as well.

Steve Easterbrook

Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation.

Mark Batterson

I'm suggesting that principles meant to deal with uncertainty that occurs naturally can be useful to manage the uncertainty that characterizes any new idea.

Scott D. Anthony

Uncertainty is a personal matter; it is not the uncertainty but your uncertainty.

Dennis Lindley

Life to me is defined by uncertainty. Uncertainty is the state in which we live, and there is no way to outfox it.

Thomas H. Cook

What a sound money system does is to stabilize all the elements in it, and reduces the uncertainty that people confront. And the one thing all human beings do when they are confronted with uncertainty is pull back, withdraw, disengage, and that means economic activity, which is really dealing with people, just goes straight down.

Alan Greenspan

Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing...Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.

Oswald Chambers

The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty

Yoshida Kenko

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

Florence Nightingale

And, frankly, what happens out of Washington is, it creates a wind in my face, uncertainty over Obamacare, uncertainty over their tax policy, uncertainty over the regulatory policy.

John Kasich

Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the need for leadership. Your capacity as a leader will be determined by how well you learn to deal with uncertainty.

Andy Stanley

One of the things that has been very difficult in Libya is the sense of uncertainty - the sense that they haven't actually finished the revolution, that there was still a great deal of uncertainty. That uncertainty has made Libya harder for business in terms of oil and other things as well.

Fareed Zakaria

If man were never to fade away ... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

Yoshida Kenko

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.