David Hume Quotes

Predicting the number of casualties is an impossibility.

Historians emphasize contingency, complexity, and the unanticipated ... Few principles apply all the time.

The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.

The greatest thing that science teaches you is the law of unintended consequences.

Whatever we thought was certain is no longer certain, and therefore in science probably certain things must be correct, but in human behaviour I am not so sure.

The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.

We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

Economics is not an exact science.

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes.

Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.

But what would have been the good?" Aslan said nothing. "You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right – somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?" "To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that." "Oh dear," said Lucy. "But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me – what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.

We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.

No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.

Politics is more difficult than physics.

One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.

"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.

I am being very humble about the Arab Spring. There's kind of a competition out there, you might have noticed, of who can be the first to say the Arab Spring is going to fail. Everyone says, "I told you so, I told you so about the Muslim Brotherhood." I have no desire to tell anyone anything. I don't know. I'm just listening, watching. It may turn out all these people are right, they may be wrong. They may be right this year and wrong next year, by the way. I'm just trying to listen day to day, figure it out.

Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.

Increasingly, the mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications.

Mysteries simply are a feast for an active mind. And while in my lifetime I've seen science make extraordinary inroads into solving the most complex questions of life, after all this time I admit that I am thrilled that there are some things that forever will remain a mystery. For example, do I wear a toupee?

The press always wants to know how many people will be killed or how much it will cost, but the answers to those questions are not knowable.

Science does not enter a chaotic society to put order into it anymore, to simplify its composition, and to put an end to controversies. It does enter it, but to add new uncertain ingredients... to all the other ingredients that make up the collective experiments. When scientists add their findings to the mix, they do not put an end to politics; they add new ingredients to the collective process.

Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.