Quotes & Sayings About Prognostication

Vonnegut had seen the worst of human conduct and refused to lie about the sort of trouble we were in, but who had not allowed his doubt to curdle into cynicism, who, for all his dark prognostication, was a figure of tremendous hope. The evidence was in his books, which performed the greatest feat of alchemy known to man: the conversion of grief into laughter by means of courageous imagination. Like any decent parent, he had made the astonishing sorrow of the examined life bearable. — Steve Almond

By 1975 sexual feeling and marriage will have nothing to do with each other. — John Langdon-Davies

Mr. Lincoln is already defeated. He cannot be re-elected. — Horace Greeley

I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place. — Winston S. Churchill

Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. [ca. 1906] — Edmund Morris

The appearance and retirement of actors are the great events of the theatrical world; and their first performances fill the pit with conjecture and prognostication, as the first actions of a new monarch agitate nations with hope and fear. — Samuel Johnson

He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody's bedrail.

("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER) — Jerome K. Jerome

March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy. — Emily Dickinson

Either we have hope within us or we don't It is a dimension of the soul, and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the World or observation of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. — Vaclav Havel

Short-term market and economic prognostication is largely a fool's errand, we invest according to a strategy that makes the need to rely on short-term market or economic assessments largely irrelevant. — Bill Ackman

Before prognostication, a disclaimer: I have never been able to pick a winner. Not that it has ever stopped me from trying to. Well, it has stopped me from buying stock, but let's not talk about that. — Rabih Alameddine

All of the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind. — Winston S. Churchill

With a whistle of the wind,
And an icy snow flurry.
Off to Gobbler's Knob,
Come now let us hurry!

It is February second!
Groundhog's Day!
We need some prognostication,
On this cold winter's day.

Happy Groundhog Day to you!
Punxsutawney Phil, do come out of your cave!
For whether you cast a fair shadow, or no shadow you see on this day!

We send many warm wishes,
Of good tidings and cheer!
For when it is Groundhog's Day,
Springtime is surely near! — L.K. Merideth

You see, astrology is like fortune-telling. If you can't get it right, you say, Well, if Venus was doing something peculiar in the background, that would alter your prognostication
because, of course, astrology is rubbish. — Quentin Crisp