Terry Eagleton Quotes

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

The goal in life is to be solid, whereas the way that life works is totally fluid, so you can never actually achieve that goal.

You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.

Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes.

One who sits between two chairs may easily fall down.

We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

Always stay in a happy medium in sport, because you never know what's around the corner.

If you're too high, it can hurt you. If you're too low, it can hurt you. I try to stay even-keel.

Life's too short to be super conservative but it's also too short to make it any shorter. I don't plan on dying early, but at the same time I don't plan on playing it so safe that I'll live to ninety.

The quest for certainty in forecasting outcomes can be the enemy of progress.

All extremes are dangerous.

Better wilt thou live...by neither always pressing out to sea nor too closely hugging the dangerous shore in cautious fear of storms.

Don't smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much or work too much. We're all on the road to the grave - but there's no need to be in the passing lane.

I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing.

Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.

You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting.

Deciding under uncertainty is bad enough, but deciding under an illusion of certainty is catastrophic.

Too much is the same as not enough.

A reasonable probability is the only certainty.

Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.

I know it was more than that. But it was also less than that, too.

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth.

If somebody knew every time they did something it was going to be a hit there would never be any failures. Sadly, that's not how it works. You take nothing for granted.