M. Granger Morgan Quotes

If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

We will never have 100 percent certainty except in hindsight.

One cannot always be right in our complex world; no dishonor attends an incorrect choice among plausible outcomes drawn from a properly constructed argument.

It's not what you don't know that kills you but what you know that isn't so.

In many important contexts, especially those that are complex, new, or unfamiliar, you shouldn’t blink… and you really shouldn’t trust your gut.

The great problem now is that we don’t know what to do.

As an intelligence analyst you have to tell the president what you know, what you think you know and what you don’t know.

I'm kind of fascinated by this idea that we can surround ourselves with information: we can just pile up data after data after data and arm ourselves with facts and yet still not be able to answer the questions that we have.

We must say something, even when we know nothing.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Ignorance never settles a question.

Experience cannot possibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has only been experience of one.

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

The statesman must weigh the rewards of success against the penalties of failure. And he is permitted only one guess.

Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know.

Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.

We can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness... We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.