W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

No one knows anything for sure.

My personal philosophy is, you can be sure of nothing.

I believe it is impossible to be sure of anything.

I can't predict the future.

But is all this true?" said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork." "You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha. "I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

There are no indisputable truths.

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

Nobody really knows everything, and they can only assume.

The clear and perfect truth no man has seen, nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and what I say about all things...; for, however perfect what he says may be, yet he does not know it; all things are matters of opinion.

All knowledge degenerates into probability.

It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties.

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

Maybe I don't believe things myself, as well. Truth is such a transient thing.

Nobody can see into the future. Nobody knows what going to go on.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

We are quite at ease in this no man's land of ignorance and doubt and dispute, absorbed in the ambiguities of trying to reach truth by mixing fact with invention.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that are not so

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

...our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Uncertainty means that we do not have a complete description of the world which we fully believe to be true.