Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

In mathematics, as in physics, so much depends on chance, on a propitious moment.

Skill is a function of chance. It’s an intuitive best-use of chance situations.

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

It is our custom to say that someone is 'lucky' or 'unlucky' if they meet with fortunate or unfortunate circumstances, respectively. It is, however, too simplistic to think in terms of random 'luck.' Even from a scientific point of view, this is not a sufficient explanation.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

It is not certain that everything is certain, neither is it certain that everything is uncertain.

Contingency is a thing unto itself, not the titration of determinism by randomness.

I failed math twice, never fully grasping probability theory. I mean, first off, who cares if you pick a black ball or a white ball out of the bag? And second, if you’re bent over about the color, don’t leave it to chance. Look in the damn bag and pick the color you want.

Used to think that luck wuz luck and nuthin' else but luck-- It made no diff'rence how or when or where or why it struck; But sev'ral years ago I changt my mind, an' now proclaim That luck's a kind uv science--same as any other game.

Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about.

We must become more comfortable with probability and uncertainty.

Coincidence is logical.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

There is no evidence based on other evidence

My favorite characters are always the unpredictable ones, and with Domino, you literally never know which way the dice are going to roll.

Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?

Based on the law of probability Everything is possible because The sheer existence of possibility Confirms the existence Of impossibility.

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

To talk of luck and chance only shows how little we really know of the laws which govern cause and effect.

We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?

A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.

No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

The fact that many things have no explanation ought to prevent them from happening; but it doesn't.

Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.