Patricia Nelson Limerick Quotes

Divining the future is a lot easier and cheaper than documenting the present.

I do believe in prophecy.

Men, forever tempted to lift the veil of the future-with the aid of computers or horoscopes or the intestines of sacrificial animals-have a worse record to show in these sciences than in almost any scientific endeavor.

Well, with prophecy you got to see what happens.

Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.

We turn to experts to tell us the future, even though they have not the foggiest idea themselves. It is a practice that goes back thousands of years.

I'm not a fortune-teller.

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

I can't predict the future and I don't have respect for people who try to.

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

PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

I shall always consider the best guesser the best prophet.

You can't see the future, there's no such thing. It's all bets. You'll never get the same answer from two seers. But that doesn't mean either of them's wrong.

Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.

I am not a prophet.

You can't know what the future holds, though you might conjecture on it, and if you're psychic, you might venture a guess.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

Well, I don't want to become a prognosticator.

Don't ever prophesy; for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it; and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it.

Being a visionary is a new profession, but it is really just a variant on fortunetelling, which may be the world's oldest. And its marketing appeal is similar - people will pay for reassurance about the unknown.

Indeed, the hereditary gift of prophecy will go to the grave with me.

No serious futurist deals in prediction. These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.

In spite of myself, I gave a snort. "Just once, I'd like to hear a simple, straightforward prophecy.

No one predicts the future. No one tries to.

People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts.