Top 431 Probability Quotes & Sayings

Digital television is no longer a probability, it is a certainty.

An electron is real; a probability is not.

Projects are usually undertaken to either solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. The probability that the project - even if precisely executed - will complete on time, on budget, and on performance is typically small. Project management is utilized to increase this probability. So in a sense, project management is risk management.

The probability of failure doesn't matter to me.

The issue, as correctly emphasized by Carl Sagan, is the probability of the evolution of high intelligence and an electronic civilization on an inhabited world. Once we have life (and almost surely it will be very different from life on Earth), what is the probability of its developing a lineage with high intelligence? On Earth, among millions of lineages of organisms and perhaps 50 billion speciation events, only one led to high intelligence; this makes me believe in its utter improbability.

It was our use of probability theory as logic that has enabled us to do so easily what was impossible for those who thought of probability as a physical phenomenon associated with "randomness". Quite the opposite; we have thought of probability distributions as carriers of information.

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Moral certainty is never more than probability.

Probability is the guide of life, and of death, too.

If you get rid of emotion for a minute and think about the threat of terrorism statistically, it's not even there. The probability that you will slip on a wet floor in your bathroom and die is a thousand times higher than the probability of you dying as a result of terrorism.

Do not mistake probability for truth, for it is a notorious liar.

I don’t mind the low probability of success, but it better be impactful if we do succeed.

Psychology helps to measure the probability that an aim is attainable.

It follows that the word probability, in its mathematical acceptance, has reference to the state of our knowledge of the circumstances under which an event may happen or fail. With the degree of information we possess concerning the circumstances of an event, the reason we have to think that it will occur, or, to use a single term, our expectation of it will vary. Probability is the expectation founded upon partial knowledge.

We must become more comfortable with probability and uncertainty.

The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.

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

The probability that a genius can do stupid things is much higher than the probability that a stupid can do genius things.

But to us, probability is the very guide of life.

Failure to meditate in the morning increases the probability of chaos throughout the day.

I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.

The probability that we will get into a car accident is a million times higher than the probability we will suffer as a result of terrorist act.

The price of freedom is the probability of crime. The price of protection is the probability of slavery.

It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between the truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability.

Hope does not always require probability.

A Resource-Based Economy is in the application of the methods of science with human concern and environmental concern. If we used the scientific method throughout the world, the probability of war drops to zero. The probability of human suffering disappears. Deprivation, poverty, crime - all those things tend to disappear because there's no basis. I'm strictly concerned with the environment that people are raised in and if that environment is altered, so will behaviors be altered.

A realistic definition of risk recognizes the potential loss of capital through inflation and taxes, and would include at least the following two factors: The probability that the investment you chose will preserve your capital over the time you intend to invest your funds. The probability the investments you select will outperform alternative investments for this period.

The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we're trying to do. It's imperfect, but that's what it's all about.

I like the probability of the impossible.

What I'm trying to do is to maximise the probability of the future being better.

If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event (prises de l'événement), are to each other as the probabilities of the event, given the causes: and the probability of each cause is equal to the probability of the event, given that cause, divided by the sum of all the probabilities of the event, given each of the causes.

All knowledge degenerates into probability.

In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory.

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.

Let probability and sample size do the heavy lifting.

Even very low-probability events can, and indeed do, occur.

Information: the negative reciprocal value of probability.

We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

If you look like your passport photo, in all probability you need the journey.

The idea is to buy when the probability is greatest that the market is going to advance.

According to theism, if a universe is to have any probability of existing, this probability is dependent upon God's beliefs, desires and creative acts. But the Hartle-Hawking probability is not dependent on any supernatural considerations; Hartle and Hawking do not sum over anything supernatural in their path integral derivation of the probability amplitude.

The grand assertion is that you must see the world through probability and that probability is the only guide you need.

The risk of an investment is described by both the probability and the potential amount of loss. The risk of an investment-the probability of an adverse outcome-is partly inherent in its very nature. A dollar spent on biotechnology research is a riskier investment than a dollar used to purchase utility equipment. The former has both a greater probability of loss and a greater percentage of the investment at stake.

Probability is the very guide of life.

Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.

Misunderstanding of probability may be the greatest of all impediments to scientific literacy.

All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.

Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.

Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.

A reasonable probability is the only certainty.

Life is a school of probability.

It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.

Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off.

The source of Pyrrhonism comes from failing to distinguish between a demonstration, a proof and a probability. A demonstration supposes that the contradictory idea is impossible; a proof of fact is where all the reasons lead to belief, without there being any pretext for doubt; a probability is where the reasons for belief are stronger than those for doubting.

I'm always trying to calculate the mathematical probability of certain outcomes.

Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written concurrently with the event, not prior to it.

In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.