Sermon quotes on certainty
Benjamin Franklin
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Martin Luther
He who believes his doctrine to be perfectly right and true has only to lift his hands and touch his ears and discover they are the long furry ears of a donkey.
Flannery O’Connor
People…think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross…You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty.
Rosa Parks
I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
Alexander Pope
’Tis with our judgments as our watches,
none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
An Essay On Criticis
Charles Renouvier
Properly speaking, there is no certainty; there are only people who are certain.
Essais De Critique Générale
Tom Stoppard
ROSENCRANTZ: That must be east, then. I think we can assume that.
GUILDENSTERN: I’m assuming nothing.
ROSENCRANTZ: No, it’s all right. That’s the sun. East.
GUILDENSTERN (looks up): Where?
ROSENCRANTZ: I watched it come up.
GUILDENSTERN: No…it was light all the time, you see, and you opened your eyes very, very slowly. If you’d been facing back there, you’d be swearing that was east.
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
Ludwig Wittgenstein
“I know” seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, “I thought I knew.”
On Certainty
John Calvin
We shall now have a full definition of faith if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.
Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.2.7
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