Forecasts Quotes & Sayings

The skies we slept under were too uncertain for forecasts. They came and went on the moody gusts of the Atlantic, bringing half a dozen weathers in an afternoon and playing all four movements of a wind symphony, allegro, andante, scherzo and adagio on the broken backs of white waves. — Niall Williams

I have been fighting climate change for two decades, and people often ask me how I remain hopeful in the face of extreme weather and grim forecasts. The answer is simple: I see countless solutions spreading across the nation and across the world. But we need more investment. — Frances Beinecke

I find my past in my present, and from these forecast my future. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Saudi Arabian oil production is at or very near its peak sustainable volume (if it did not, in fact peak almost 25 years ago), and is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future. There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption. — Matthew Simmons

Most long-range forecasts of what is technically feasible in future time periods dramatically underestimate the power of future developments because they are based on what I call the "intuitive linear" view of history rather than the "historical exponential" view. — Ray Kurzweil

I never make forecasts but whoever wins that game will win the final. — Ken Bates

Many people object to "wasting money in space" yet have no idea how much is actually spent on space exploration. The CSA's budget, for instance, is less than the amount Canadians spend on Halloween candy every year, and most of it goes toward things like developing telecommunications satellites and radar systems to provide data for weather and air quality forecasts, environmental monitoring and climate change studies. Similarly, NASA's budget is not spent in space but right here on Earth, where it's invested in American businesses and universities, and where it also pays dividends, creating new jobs, new technologies and even whole new industries. — Chris Hadfield

Even good excuses, really good ones, don't help very much.
Explanations, on the other hand, are both scarce and useful.
And accurate forecasts and insightful intuition are priceless. — Seth Godin

I will have to pay more attention to Russian weather forecasts in future, to check that Kiev, Warsaw, Riga and Vilnius are not included in their maps. — Andrey Kurkov

Financial security is a constant in my life. I allow my income to constantly expand, no matter what the newspapers and economists say. I move beyond my present income, and I go beyond the economic forecasts. I do not listen to people out there telling me how far I can go or what I can do. — Louise Hay

I was really interested to see whether we could make predictions or forecasts by listening in on what people were saying on social media. — Noreena Hertz

William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke. — Willa Cather

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised. — Warren Buffett

Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the forecast — Warren Buffett

In an existence like mine forecasts could not be made: I never know what could happen to me in the next half hour, I can't imagine a life all made up of minimal alternatives, carefully circumscribed, on which bets can be made: either this or that. — Italo Calvino

And you should not expect much from pundits making long-term forecasts - although they may have valuable insights into the near future. The — Daniel Kahneman

In fact, there is no business; there are only people. Business exists only *among* people and *for* people.Seems simple enough, and it applies to every aspect of business, but not enough businesspeople seem to get it.Reading the economic forecasts and the indicators and the ratios and the rates for this or that, someone from another planet might actually believe that there really are invisible hands at work in the marketplace. — James Autry

Nabhan's forecasts nailed three of the largest seismic events on the West Coast in 1996. — Erin Aubry Kaplan

Forecasts are difficult to make-particularly those about the future. — Samuel Goldwyn

It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts. — Benjamin Graham

Cisco systems forecasts that by 2022, the Internet of Everything will generate $14.4 trillion in cost savings and revenue. — Jeremy Rifkin

Pundits forecast not because they know, but because they are asked. — John Kenneth Galbraith

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

I have spent too long being able to manipulate the answers I want from market research to rely upon its findings any more than I do weather forecasts. — Charles Saatchi

We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children. — Warren Buffett

Forecasts vary in horizon, from a few seconds up to a few days in financial markets, compared to from one to several months for macro variables. We have to provide uncertainty intervals around the central forecasts to indicate the extent to which we are unclear about the future. — Clive Granger

One of the soundest rules to remember when making forecasts in the field of economics is that whatever is to happen is happening already. — Sylvia Porter

In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods
the long-distance phone call, the telegram
were marked "For Emergency Use Only." So my parents waved me off into the unknown, and their news bulletins about me would have been restricted to "Yes, he's arrived safely,"and "Last time we heard he was in Oregon," and "We expect him back in a few weeks." I'm not saying this was necessarily better, let alone more character-forming; just that in my case it probably helped not to have my parents a button's touch away, spilling out anxieties and long-range weather forecasts, warning me against floods, epidemics and psychos who preyed on backpackers. — Julian Barnes

And that's how the tournament started, the Million Dollar World Series of Monopoly ...
... Jess and Pete thought alike
like city boys, my father would have said, looking for the payoff in a situation rather than the pitfall. Rose and Ty and I played like farmers, looking for pitfalls, holes, drop-offs, something small that will tip the tractor, break it, eat into your time, your crop, the profits that already exist in your mind, and not only as a result of crop projections and long-range forecasts, but also as an ideal that has never been attained, but could be this year. — Jane Smiley

Auto repair, piloting, skiing, perhaps even management: these are skills that yield to application, hard work, and native talent. But forecasting an uncertain future and deciding the best course of action in the face of that future are much less likely to do so. And much of what we've seen so far suggests that a large group of diverse individuals will come up with better and more robust forecasts and make more intelligent decisions than even the most skilled "decision maker." — James Surowiecki

As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable. — Stephen Hawking

Despite proclamations and forecasts to the contrary, neither the nation-state nor the international system of states is dead in the new millennium. What has changed are calculations of state interest and state navigation of the international system. Both have become much more complex, owing to the increased importance of such factors as crossnational actors and forces. — Brigid Starkey

A potentially useful property of forecasts based on cointegration is that when extended some way ahead, the forecasts of the two series will form a constant ratio, as is expected by some asymptotic economic theory. — Clive Granger

There are good waves not that far from Manhattan - on Long Island, in north Jersey. It's true that the best surf around here tends to happen in winter, so you need a good wetsuit, and the time window of good waves is often pretty short, so you have to stay on top of the forecasts. — William Finnegan

Never make forecasts, especially about future. — Samuel Goldwyn

Music forecasts the past, recalls the future. Now and then the difference falls away, and in one simple gift of circling sound, the ear solves the scrambled cryptogram. One abiding rhythm, present and always, and you're free. But a few measures more, and the cloak of time closes back around you. — Richard Powers

Some of what these pamphlets [of astrological forecasts] say will turn out to be true, but most of it time and experience will expose as empty and worthless. The latter part will be forgotten literally: written on the winds while the former will be carefully entered in people's memories, as is usual with the crowd. — Johannes Kepler

Enron followed the unwise practice of paying bonuses based on forecasted profits, not actual cash flows, a system that posed a problem remarkably similar to the R&D issues Gluck and his colleagues had solved at Northern Electric years earlier. In short: You can forecast anything. Delivering actual results is a different story. The emphasis on forecasts also neutralized Enron's so-called risk-management group, which became a shrinking violet in the face of ever more outrageous estimates. — Duff McDonald

If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you've wasted 10 minutes — Peter Lynch

When all the experts and forecasts agree, something else is going to happen — Bob Farrell

Did you ever notice that most of us relate to our lives like we have no control or say over them? Especially in areas where we're not proud. We speak about ourselves like we're reporting on the weather, making sweeping generalizations...And boy do we ever believe our own 'forecasts. — Lauren Handel Zander

I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity ... — Warren Buffett

It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci. — Antoine Lavoisier

If we lived the plans we do more as bets than as forecasts, we would be less anxious and more prepared for the unexpected. — Luigina Sgarro

If the twenty-first century turns out to be a time of low (demographic and economic) growth and high return on capital (in a context of heightened international competition for capital resources), or at any rate in countries where these conditions hold true, inheritance will therefore probably again be as important as it was in the nineteenth century. An evolution in this direction is already apparent in France and a number of other European countries, where growth has already slowed considerably in recent decades. For the moment it is less prominent in the United States, essentially because demographic growth there is higher than in Europe. But if growth ultimately slows more or less everywhere in the coming century, as the median demographic forecasts by the United Nations (corroborated by other economic forecasts) suggest it will, then inheritance will probably take on increased importance throughout the world. — Thomas Piketty

The IEA forecasts that production from oilfields, which have started production up to 2011, will nearly drop two-thirds by 2035. — Peter Voser

I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor. — William Gilmore Simms

Makridakis and Hibon reached the sad conclusion that "statistically sophisticated or complex methods do not necessarily provide more accurate forecasts than simpler ones. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is not for us to forecast the future, but to shape it. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

We ignore outlooks and forecasts ... we're lousy at it and we admit it ... everyone else is lousy too, but most people won't admit it. — Martin J. Whitman

During the early 1960s, I decided to supplement research support for quantitative economic studies at Pennsylvania by selling econometric forecasts to private and public sector buyers. — Lawrence R. Klein

They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong. — Blaise Pascal

I don't read economic forecasts. I don't read the funny papers. — Warren Buffett

School. I never tried to talk a student into coming to UCLA. I tried to show him what was there and what to expect, and I never told him he was going to play; I told him he would have the opportunity to play, and if he was good enough, then he'd be able to. Rosy forecasts during the "courtship" of a player can only lead to disappointment and distrust if anything fails to meet that student's expectations. — John Wooden

You should expect little or nothing from Wall Street stock pickers who hope to be more accurate than the market in predicting the future of prices. And you should not expect much from pundits making long-term forecasts. — Daniel Kahneman

Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing, often contradictory and rarely encouraging. — Julian Baggini

Heatstroke is an important and useful addition to the library on climate change, bringing insights from deep-time ecological research to help illuminate the dire forecasts of which we're already so aware. — David Quammen

Of course, economic forecasts must be revised when new information arrives and are thus necessarily provisional. — Ben Bernanke

The MD is well aware that the forecasts are no good but he needs them for planning purposes ... — Kenneth Arrow

The Treasury has enough trouble with forecasts even when they are trying to get them right. — Nigel Lawson

People are like their own ecosystems, little planets made up of islands and climates and forecasts. Some of us carry jagged mountain peaks, and some of us carry lakes. — Katie Kacvinsky

We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between 2.8% and 17.4%. — Warren Buffett

Couples who regularly practice empathy see stunning results. It is the independent variable that predicts a successful marriage, according to behaviorist John Gottman, who, post hoc criticisms notwithstanding, forecasts divorce probabilities with accuracy rates approaching 90 percent. In Gottman's studies, if the wife felt she was being heard by her husband - to the point that he accepted her good influence on his behavior - the marriage was essentially divorce-proof. (Interestingly, whether the husband felt heard was not a factor in divorce rates.) If that empathy trafficking was absent, the marriage foundered. Research — John Medina

Precise forecasts masquerade as accurate ones. — Nate Silver

For-profit weather forecasters rarely predict exactly a 50 percent chance of rain, which might seem wishy-washy and indecisive to consumers.41 Instead, they'll flip a coin and round up to 60, or down to 40, even though this makes the forecasts both less accurate and — Nate Silver

Hundreds of studies confirm that human forecasts are flawed and biased. Human decision making is not so great either. Again to take just one example, consider what is called the "status quo bias," a fancy name for inertia. For a host of reasons, which we shall explore, people have a strong tendency to go along with the status quo or default option. — Richard H. Thaler

The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons. — George Orwell

You said you see patterns," Lexi said. "What did you mean by that?"
"The day my mother died, I felt the wind on my face and I looked up at the clouds. I could see this amazing pattern forming, always moving, but immediately I knew something was very wrong. It was there, right in front of me. Who sees forecasts of danger or death in clouds?" Airiana pressed her fingers to her eyes. She had the beginnings of a wicked headache.
"You do, obviously," Lissa said.

-Lexi, Airiana, & Lissa — Christine Feehan

That Marxism is not a science is entirely clear to intelligent people in the Soviet Union. One would even feel awkward to refer to it as a science. Leaving aside the exact sciences, such as physics, mathematics, and the natural sciences, even the social sciences can predict an event - when, in what way and how an event might occur. Communism has never made any such forecasts. It has never said where, when, and precisely what is going to happen. Nothing but declamations. Rhetoric to the effect that the world proletariat will overthrow the world bourgeoisie and the most happy and radiant society will then arise. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions. — Orrin Hatch

Thick February mists cling heavily To the dead earth and to each leafless tree, And closer down upon the hilltops draw, Dull forecasts there of bright, sure-coming spring; Yet the heart gathers hope and strange delight From this dear, unlovely, wished-for sight Of leaden-misted twilights lengthening. — Emma Lazarus

I have no plans to get an iPad. I know it will do more things than my Kindle, but I don't want more things. If I want other stuff - movies, TV shows, weather forecasts, the forthcoming Josh Ritter album - I have my Mac. — Stephen King

The affairs of this world are so shifting and depend on so many accidents, that it is hard to form any judgment concerning the future; nay, we see from experience that the forecasts even of the wise almost always turn out false. — Francesco Guicciardini

Few of these forecasts came true. On the other hand, nobody foresaw the Internet. — Yuval Noah Harari

Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what's actually happening to the companies in which you've invested — Peter Lynch

Experts kill me. Economic experts, that is. Corporations, foundations, publications and governments pay them by the bucketful, and they fill buckets with forecasts that change more frequently than white-collar, workers do shirts. What Lies Ahead is the usual title. What Lies would often be more appropriate. If women's hemlines changed as rapidly as an economist's forecasts, the fashion people and the textile industry would be more profitable than any other. In fact, if all the country's economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. — Malcolm Forbes

I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we are plagued, this "weather-forecast" fraud is about the most aggravating. It "forecasts" precisely what happened yesterday or a the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen to-day. — Jerome K. Jerome

The future is not to be forecast, but created. — Arthur C. Clarke

Make then your forecasts, my lords Astrologers, with your slavish physicians, by means of those astrolabes with which you seek to discern the fantastic nine moving spheres; in these you finally imprison your own minds, so that you appear to me but as parrots in a cage, while I watch you dancing up and down, turning and hopping within those circles. — Giordano Bruno

The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts. — Russell L. Ackoff

How thrilling to discover one had depths, how consoling to find them less polluted than the shallows, how encouraging to identify the enemy not as a fissure in the will but as a dead fetus in the specimen jar of the unconscious. My attention was being paternally led away from the excruciating present to the happy, healthy future that would be enabled by an analysis of the sick past, as though the priest had nothing to do but study old books and make bright forecasts, the present not worthy of notice. — Edmund White

Now when a man is as right as that in his forecasts, there is some reason to think he may be right in his premises. — Frank Sheed