One Thing Is Certain Quotes & Sayings

He places one of his long fingers over my lips, silencing me. I can smell my own musky arousal on his digit and I have the strongest urge to take it in my mouth and suck it as I did earlier during my audition. He says nothing but drills into me with those dazzling eyes. I have the strangest feeling that he is looking into my soul.
"Let us see where the wave takes us. I know I am going to enjoy the ride and I can guarantee our mutual satisfaction. Maybe we'll be washed to shore, I just don't know yet, but you can be certain of one thing ... "
I gaze up at him from his chest, breathing in the scent of his masculinity as I do.
"What's that, sir?" I ask, my voice betraying the curiosity I feel.
He looks down at me for a long, hard moment before he answers.
"I won't let you drown. — Felicity Brandon

The more self-evident a thing is to one's reason, the more certain it is that it exists — Jostein Gaarder

We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what really was, what it meant. — Colum McCann

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. — Allan Bloom

We are but phantoms, and the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud-shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights - so be it! But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dream-stuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together! — H.G.Wells

One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but thats quite hard to say casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It's not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, and then being on somebody else's. — Jeanette Winterson

This is the theory ... that anything that is art ... is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it's no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating. — Edward Gorey

I think, with certain characters, you have to listen. Sometimes, listening can be funnier: the thing you don't say is the one-liner. That's the ying to the yang. — Ray Santiago

It appears to be a re-run of a bad movie. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain - he's not disarming. — George W. Bush

....let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end........Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. — Robert Harris

When Scripture describes Satan as an angel of light, it should make the hair on your neck stand up with terror. Man's greatest enemy is most present when we are most certain he is not. He comes as an angel of light. Satan is working his deception through disguise. We think we are doing the right thing, taking the needed stand, fighting the most important foe, but if we are not careful, extremely wise, and cautious, we are doing the opposite. Intending to advance the agenda of our King, we slip very easily into fighting the Lord and assisting satanic schemes. In every section of this book, we will spend one study assessing how Satan deceives us into believing we do well even when we fail to act like men. — James MacDonald

One thing is certain, however. The metaphysical 'rule', which is held as an ironclad conviction by those whom I have debated the issue of creation, namely that "out of nothing nothing comes," has no foundation in science. Arguing that it is self-evident, unwavering, and unassailable is like arguing, as Darwin falsely did, when he made the suggestion that the origin of life was beyond the domain of science by building an analogy with the incorrect claim that matter cannot be created or destroyed. All it represents is an unwillingness to recognize the simple fact that nature may be cleverer than philosophers or theologians. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Robert A. Bjork It is natural for people to think that learning is a matter of building up skills or knowledge in one's memory, and that forgetting is a matter of losing some of what was built up. From that perspective, learning is a good thing and forgetting is a bad thing. The relationship between learning and forgetting is not, however, so simple, and in certain important respects is quite the opposite: Conditions that produce forgetting often enable additional learning, for example, and learning or recalling some things is a contributor to the forgetting of other things. — Aaron S. Benjamin

Whether prayer changes our situation or not, one thing is certain: Prayer will change us! — Billy Graham

Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man. — Pliny The Elder

I turn to look over my shoulder - in a minute, I will lay down my pen - and think, write that there is only one thing I know for certain, and it has everything to do with "happy". Indeed, it is the last thing I will say on the subject:
There is not a story, in the entire history of the world, that cannot be improved upon by the inclusion of a character named Kit. — Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Certain people have said that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action. — Lemony Snicket

Oh. Dane. That's his name, right?" she asked. "He took our phones and put the shackles on us, but said we could use the phone on the table. I'm not sure if it's some kind of dominance posturing," she trailed off for a moment. "Actually yeah, having been around him for more than thirty seconds, I'm relatively certain that this is one hundred percent, testosterone-laden alpha male posturing. Is Jake like this?"
"I might be an idiot," I said, "but even I wouldn't fall for this sort of thing. A guy who goes to this length to seem awesome must have a dick the size of a gherkin. — Lynn Red

But he wouldna do it. John." He looked up then, and gave me a crooked smile. "He loved me, he said. And if I couldna give him that in return - and he kent I couldn't - then he'd not take counterfeit for true coin." He shook himself, hard, like a dog coming out of the water. "No. A man who would say such a thing is not one who'd bugger a child for the sake of his father's bonny blue eyes, I'll tell ye that for certain, Sassenach. — Diana Gabaldon

I am exclusively occupied with the problem of gravitation and hope with the help of a local mathematician friend [Marcel Grossman] to overcome all the difficulties. One thing is certain, however, that never in life have I been quite so tormented. A great respect for mathematics has been instilled within me, the subtler aspects of which, in my stupidity, I regarded until now as pure luxury. — Albert Einstein

The World as an Ice Cream Store

From now on, try to look at the world as if it were a gigantic ice cream store. What makes it so great is that it contains a combination of so many unique flavors, and this is why people love it so much. If you want to keep enjoying all the ice cream, we all have to take part in preserving and maintaining 'the store'. United, we have to make sure that it never gets robbed or destroyed, and to protect it from greedy crooks who want to brand and monopolize certain flavors, and eliminate those that compete with them.

Our job as devoted protectors of our universal ice cream store is to make sure that no one group tries to control it, and that there is always enough cream for everybody all around. There is no such thing as 'cream only for the cream', or 'the best cream only for this or that team'. We have to stick together and melt together. Or else, there will be no peace. — Suzy Kassem

Some objects seem to disappear immediately while others never want to leave. Here is a small black plastic gizmo with a serious demeanor that turns up regularly, like a politician at public functions. It seems to be an "integral part," a kind of switch with screw holes so that it can be attached to something larger. Nobody knows what. This thing's use has been forgotten but it looks so important that no one is willing to throw it in the trash. It survives by bluff, like certain insects that escape being eaten because of their formidable appearance. — Louis Jenkins

Six years later the lead scientist, pharmacologist Kenneth Blum, published a much more subdued assessment: Unfortunately it was erroneously reported that [we] had found the "alcoholism gene," implying that there was a one-to-one relation between a gene and a specific behavior. Such misinterpretations are common - readers may recall accounts of an "obesity gene," or a "personality gene." Needless to say, there is no such thing as a specific gene for alcoholism, obesity, or a particular type of personality. ... Rather the issue at hand is to understand how certain genes and behavioral traits are connected. — Gabor Mate

But one thing is certain, he is the master criminal of this age. He controls a marvellous organization. Most of the Peace propaganda during the war was originated and financed by him. — Agatha Christie

Antonia, if Mark is right and I never see you again, if this really is good-bye, tell me one thing for certain. Tell me I won't die knowing you married him willingly. Fight them both with all you have. — Julie March

Managing perfect body weight is not a complicated rocket science. Our body is made up of food which we eat during our day to day life. If we are overweight or obese at the moment then one thing is certain that the food which we eat is unhealthy. — Subodh Gupta

What matters is the one thing I do know for certain: God is with me. — Craig Groeschel

Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost. — Charles Lindbergh

It may be that Emerson is going to hell, but of one thing I am certain; he will change the climate there, and emigration will set that way. — Edward Taylor

Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won't be for our benefit but for the authorities. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it. — Germaine Greer

Wherever our lives lead us, one thing is certain. You and I will always be connected. You might be able to deny that, but I can't. Even I am not that good a liar. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

One thing is certain: the arts keep you alive. They stimulate, encourage, challenge, and, most of all, guarantee a future free from boredom. They allow growth and even demand it in that time of life we call maturity but too often enter it with a childish faith that what we learned in youth is sustenance enough for the years when most men are mentally famished but won't admit it - or when they are apt to curb their hunger with the sops of complacency, security, and the assurance of death. — Vincent Price

One of our difficulties is, surely, that we want to be happy through something, through a person, through a symbol, through an idea, through virtue, through action, through companionship. We think happiness, or reality, or what you like to call it, can be found through something. Therefore we feel that through action, through companionship, through certain ideas, we will find happiness. So being lonely, I want to find someone or some idea through which I can be happy. But loneliness always remains; it is ever there.
If I use you for my fulfillment for my happiness, you become very unimportant, because it is my happiness I am concerned with. So when the mind is concerned with the idea that it can have happiness through somebody, through a thing or through an idea, do I not make all these means transitory? Because my concern is then something else, to go further, to catch something beyond. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter

Remember, intelligence is not part of the mind. Intellect is, but intelligence is not; hence, the intellectual is full of mind but in life he behaves very unintelligently. He has a certain expertise, he is trained intellectually to, do a certain thing, his mind is functioning like a computer. But life is not one-dimensional, you cannot exhaust it in one expertise; it is multi-dimensional. — Rajneesh

The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal from life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

One thing is certain the only thing that makes you younger or older is that nothing can happen that is different from what you expected and when that happens and it mostly does happen everything is different from what you expected then there is no difference between
being younger or older. — Gertrude Stein

You never really know. Lately Kevin has been bothering himself with the idea that nothing is certain, nothing can be proven. Not one thing, not in all the world. The sun will rise tomorrow. Prove it. The sun rose this morning. Prove it. The sun is in the sky. Prove it. There's a sun at all. Prove it. The world is like a box of Kleenex, every doubt pulling another along behind it. You can always find a new reason to distrust the facts. — Kevin Brockmeier

And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about. — Haruki Murakami

Only God was able to create a free creature, and freedom could only arise by the act of creation. Freedom is not the result or product of evolution. Freedom and product are disparate ideas. God does not produce or construct. He creates. We used to say the same for artists, for the artist who constructs does not create a personality but rather a poster of man. A personality cannot be constructed. Maybe sooner or later, during this century or after a million years of continued civilization, man will succeed in constructing an imitation of himself, a kind of robot or monster, something similar to its constructor. This human-looking monster may look very much like man, but one thing is certain: it will never have freedom. Without a divine touch, the result of evolution would not have been man, but rather a developed animal, a super-animal, a creature with a human body and intelligence but without a heart and personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one — Rainer Maria Rilke

Of one thing the investor can be certain: A large company's need to bring in a new chief executive from the outside is a damning sign of something basically wrong with the existing management - no matter how good the surface signs may have been as indicated by the most recent earnings statement. — Philip Arthur Fisher

It should be for satsang that we go to spiritual centers. By going there, people who are involved in the world can attain peace and concentration. The concentration gained when one goes there cannot be achieved if one sits at home. Even though the breeze blows everywhere, coolness will be felt more if we sit in the shade of a tree. In the same way, although God is all-pervading, this presence will clearly shine in certain places more than others. That is the greatness of satsang. Satsang is the best thing for spiritual advancement. — Mata Amritanandamayi

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist. — Lysander Spooner

Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness. But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man. — Olaf Stapledon

I have confused ideas of deity, heavily influenced by mind-altering years of reading science fiction, that do not often trouble me, but one thing I know for certain, and have known since the age of five or six, is that I really can't stand the God of Abraham. In fact, I consider him to constitute the pattern to which every true asshole I have ever known in my life has pretty well conformed. — Michael Chabon

I don't know if I learned anything new from this journey, but I now had a beautiful and peaceful vision of the kind of balance I wanted in my life. To be able to move calmly and peacefully from one thing to the next, each in its own time, without the pressure of other responsibilities pushing in on me. And always writing, in and around and among everything else, always writing. I loved her sense of purpose and awareness of the spirit in all things. She honors all things. And she has a purpose in the words she spreads, certain words for certain people, and she watches, and she celebrates the blossoming that comes from her words. She has a rhythm for her everyday life which is productive and intentional, measured and life-giving. — Marge Hulburt

When the Labor Department is forced to relent and let these visitors do this work it is of course all legal. But it makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world; no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the field for lack of harvesters. — Ronald Reagan

I HAVE REALIZED THAT FIGHTING FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS HAS TOO OFTEN BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH MAN-HATING. IF THERE IS ONE THING I KNOW FOR CERTAIN, IT IS THAT THIS HAS TO STOP. — Emma Watson

It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well. — Gunter Grass

We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself. The future is never the way we imagined it — Shonda Rhimes

The Internet has many regrettable sides to it, but that's one thing that's always stood it in good stead with me: it's a writer's world. Your life online is mediated through words. You work, you socialize, you flirt, all by typing. I honestly feel there's a certain epistolary, Austenian grandness to the whole enterprise. — Christian Rudder

Regardless of the reaction of others, one thing is certain: True worship and devotion will make our lives fragrant and will perfume the environment around us. Our homes, our churches, even our places of work will bear the sweet scent of our devotion. Most important, the Lord Jesus will be pleased. And ultimately that is all that really matters. — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers. — William Stanley Jevons

Have I told you about the tension of opposites? he says. The tension of opposites? Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't.
You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way.
So which side wins, I ask?
Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
Love wins. Love always wins. — Mitch Albom

The Jewish culture - people that are Jewish have a certain cultural habit that they've formed and one of those habits is an appreciation of theater and music - these are cultural things one does associate with values that are promulgated by Jewish families. I think that's a good thing. — Woody Allen

One thing in any case is certain: man is neither the oldest nor the most constant problem that has been posed for human knowledge. — Michel Foucault

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that freedom is the only thing that matters to me at all. Also utter irresponsibility! Never to have to obey any laws or rules, only certain standards one sets for oneself. I want to revolt, as an individual, against everything that 'ties.' If only one could live one's life unhampered in any way, not getting in knots and twisting up. There must be a free way, without making a muck of it all. — Daphne Du Maurier

As these debts become due, rich creditors will be pitted against poor debtors; private-sector taxpayers against public-sector workers, young workers against the retired, domestic voters against foreign bondholders. It is impossible to forecast who will win each of these battles but one thing seems certain: not all these debts will be paid in full. — Philip Coggan

The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction ... One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgements of value follow directly from his wihes for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments. — Sigmund Freud

The events of the world can have no separate life from the world. And yet the world itself can have no temporal view of things. It can have no cause to favor certain enterprises over others. The passing of armies and the passing of sands in the desert are one. There is no favoring, you see. How could there be? At whose behest? This man did not cease to believe in God. Nor did he come to have some modern view of God. There was God and there was the world. He knew that the world would forget him but that God could not. And yet that was the very thing he wished for. — Cormac McCarthy

In order to awaken, first of all one must realize that one is in a state of sleep. And in order to realize that one is indeed in a state of sleep, one must recognize and fully understand the nature of the forces which operate to keep one in the state of sleep, or hypnosis. It is absurd to think that this can be done by seeking information from the very source which induces the hypnosis.
... One thing alone is certain, that man's slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most terrible thing that can happen to a man. — G.I. Gurdjieff

A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone. — Arthur Helps

One thing is certain. The old Piper Laurie is no more. — Piper Laurie

They say in moments of great fear or desperation, a man will always make a choice - either to flee or face his enemy, but choice requires thought, and in the moment when you know for certain that death is stalking you with strides you cannot outrun, there is no time for thought. You do not choose. Like Betto, or Malchus, or Valens, you act, doing either one thing or the other. — Andrew Levkoff

So, Henrik, is the weather good for fishing?" Papa asked cheerfully, and listened briefly. Then he continued, "I'm sending Inge to you today with the children, and she will be bringing you a carton of cigarettes. "Yes, just one," he said, after a moment. Annemarie couldn't hear Uncle Henrik's words. "But there are a lot of cigarettes available in Copenhagen now, if you know where to look," he went on, "and so there will be others coming to you as well, I'm sure." But it wasn't true. Annemarie was quite certain it wasn't true. Cigarettes were the thing that Papa missed, the way Mama missed coffee. He complained often - he had complained only yesterday - that there were no cigarettes in the stores. — Lois Lowry

Let there be two possible things, A and B, one of which is such that it is necessary that it exists, and let us assume that there is more perfection in A than in B. Then, at least, we can explain why A should exist rather than B and can foresee which of them will exist; indeed, this can be demonstrated, that is, rendered certain from the nature of the thing. — Gottfried Leibniz

In this world of doubt, one thing is certain for me; that I will go on writing songs up to and - I hope, through heavenly means or diabolical - beyond the day I die. — Robyn Hitchcock

I am not saying there will always be flowers and flowers in your life. No, there are thorns, but they too are good. And I am not saying that your life will always be sweet. It will many times be very bitter, but that's how life grows: through dialectics. I am not saying you will always be good. Sometimes you will be very bad, but one thing will be certain: when you are bad you will be authentically bad, and when you are good you will be authentically good. One can trust, one can rely upon you. When you are angry, one can rely on it that your anger is not false, not cold; it is hot and alive. And when you love, one can rely upon you that it is alive and warm. Remember, — Osho

You go into a book and you're in the dark, really. You go in with a certain fear and trembling. You know one thing. You know you will not be the same person when this voyage is over. But you don't know what's going to happen to you between getting on the boat and stepping off. — James A. Baldwin

One thing is certain, You can't shake hands with a fist. — David Allan Coe

While people are often content to criticize and blame others for what goes wrong, surely we should at least attempt to put forward constructive ideas. One thing is for certain: given human beings' love of truth, justice, peace, and freedom, creating a better, more compassionate world is a genuine possibility. The potential is there. — Dalai Lama

Now I see that there is no such thing as love unreturn'd. The pay is certain, one way or another. — Walt Whitman

I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain ploughland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name
and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country, is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession ... — Ursula K. Le Guin

The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever. — Haruki Murakami

One thing is certain: the time will come when the opinions of priests and doctors must give way to the science of life; for their opinions lead to death and misery, and the science of life is health and happiness. — Phineas Quimby

Whatever you believe, and however, each of us deals with these events in our lives, one thing is for certain the truism, time is a great healer, is of no consolation at that moment of intense, all-consuming grief.

From GLASS HALF FULL — Sarah Jane Butfield

There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. It's true for everyone. But maybe that isn't wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, there's no reason to complain. And besides who would be complaint to anyway? (A Walk To Kobe, Granta 124: Travel) — Haruki Murakami

But what we have here is not a nice girl, as generally understood. For one thing, she's not beautiful. There's a certain set to the jaw and arch to the nose that might, with a following wind and in the right light, be called handsome by a good-natured liar. Also, there's a certain glint in her eye generally possessed by those people who have found that they are more intelligent than most people around them but who haven't yet learned that one of the most intelligent things they can do is prevent said people ever finding this out. — Terry Pratchett

People have been rumouring that Queen are going to split up for the last eight years at least. I've got some great cuttings at home from people saying 'One thing is certain, Queen will no longer exist in a year's time.' And that was in 1973. — Brian May

Anything can happen, Pet. If there's one thing for certain, it's that nothing is for certain. — Joshua Edward Smith

The way Smith sees it, this kind of approach denotes a certain category of writer: the Micro Manager. Authors fall into one of two primary camps, she explained in her 2009 book of essays, Changing My Mind.691 Macro Planners work out the structure of their novels and then write within that structure. Micro Managers, on the other hand, don't rely on an overarching configuration (don't even conceive of one), but rather home in on each sentence, one by one, and each sentence, as they come to it, becomes the only thing that exists. If there is a spectrum starting with Macro Planners on one end and Micro Managers on the other, Smith would be somewhere to the right of the page. Smith's writing is entirely incremental and cumulative. The grand plan is that there is no grand plan; working things out ahead of time ruins everything, "feels disastrous."She prefers the writing of a novel as a process of discovery. "The thinking goes on on the page," not beforehand. — Sarah Stodola

Every person has a right to be unhappy, to suffer in peace without someone else telling her that she is acting like a spoiled brat. Without a certain someone telling her constantly that her life is the stuff that everyone else dreams about. Happiness is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. — Suzanne Selfors

One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. — John Paul Stevens

One hears a lot of talk about the hostility between scientists and engineers. I don't believe in any such thing. In fact I am quite certain it is untrue ... There cannot possibly be anything in it because neither side has anything to do with the other. — David Hilbert

One thing is certain: your essence in my life is essential. It has been from the beginning. Even when I was a kid, it was as if I were waiting for you to enter the picture. Starting over in a new country, adjusting to the strange calm that takes hold when you've left everything that defines you, I had the feeling of weightless suspension. It stayed with me until the day I met you. — Louisa Hall

One thing is certain. My judgment becomes compromised when it comes to Phillipe, and I have no immediate idea on how to stop myself from wanting to be compromised over and over again. — Ella Frank

There is a danger, when thinking of the earliest civilized people, of putting too much emphasis on technology. One tends to assume that if you don't have, at least, a lavatory and perhaps something that will take you a lot faster than your own feet, or a certain number of gadgets in the house, then you must be in some way, a bit backward and defective ... the important thing to remember is that technology is not necessarily the same thing as civilization. — Jacquetta Hawkes

One thing is certain: our families are important. Don't get so stressed out and so preoccupied that we neglect one of the greatest things that God has given us, and that's our families. — Victoria Osteen

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. — Dave Harvey

This isn't a spotless life. There is much ahead, my immaculate little peach. And there is no way to say it other than to say it: marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naive. That's okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way. A good way to start would be to let fall your notions about "perfect couples." It's really such an impossible thing to either perceive honestly in others or live up to when others believe it about us. It does nothing but box some people in and shut other people out, and it ultimately makes just about everyone feel like shit. A perfect couple is a wholly private thing. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know for certain whether they're in one. Its only defining quality is that it's composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times. — Cheryl Strayed

Reed wanted to believe, and he had to place faith in her, to have a life with her. "Ruby, the one thing I know for certain is I love you. I have faith in you. I believe in you. — D.F. Jones

One thing is for sure. Nothing in life is easy or certain. You'll be fighting until the end. And when you've overcome all chaos has to offer, those who had it easy will struggle. By fighting through it, you are giving yourself a skill some just do not have. When the world, and the realm, erupt into chaos, you'll be the one standing with a sword still in your hand. Be proud of yourself. You're more of a warrior than you know. — Lori Goodwin

One thing I know for certain is that this killer - the Reaper - isn't my white knight. In fact, in this story, I very well suspect he may even be the villain. Because if Blaine ever finds out how I feel, it will certainly be the death of me." - Sasha — A. Zavarelli

Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight. — Arthur Eddington

While in any other great city the vagabond child is a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the public vices which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured on the surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to put on record, and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our popular revolutions, that a certain incorruptibility results from the idea which exists in the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of the ocean. — Victor Hugo

We need to reject evil and embrace our faith-whatever it may be. We need to remind ourselves about how things used to be-how it should be. Only by informing others, can we defeat this corrupt system of organized chaos. Remember, everything that is happening now was planned long ago, and it is all happening for a specific purpose. The insane policies that are being made have never been about keeping us safe from terrorists; nor have they been about preserving freedom of speech, or just plain freedom. One thing is for certain: it is not about God, nor is it about Grandma or "apple pie". It is all about money and power and control-plain and simple. — Cass Swenson

You know, it's such a peculiar thing
our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they're enjoying themselves? That's when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they've slaved for
at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That's your mankind in general. I don't want to touch it. — Ayn Rand

One thing in life is for certain, the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light. — Kate DiCamillo