“There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), Ch. 5, p. 12 http://books.google.com/books?id=2hNbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+only+one+thing+about+which+I+am+certain+and+this+is%22&pg=PA12#v=onepage- 13 http://books.google.com/books?id=2hNbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22that+there+is+very+little+about+which+one+can+be+certain%22&pg=PA13#v=onepage

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain." by W. Somerset Maugham?
W. Somerset Maugham photo
W. Somerset Maugham 158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965

Related quotes

Eric Hoffer photo

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

Section 57
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength.

Arthur C. Clarke photo
William S. Burroughs photo
P. J. O'Rourke photo

“One thing that's certain about going outdoors: When you come back inside, you'll be scratching.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

C.G. Jung photo
Jakob Dylan photo

“There's only one thing that's certain
And that's everybody, everybody's hurting”

Jakob Dylan (1969) singer and songwriter

"Everybody's Hurting"
Women + Country (2010)

H. H. Asquith photo

“...one thing is certain, that the Budget of next year will stand at the very centre of our work, by which, I was going to say, we shall stand or fall, by which certainly we shall be judged in the estimation both of the present and of posterity.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (11 December 1908), quoted in The Times (12 December 1908), p. 10
Prime Minister

Maimónides photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Foreword
is 5 (1926)
Context: There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort— things which are always inside of us and in fact are us and which consequently will not be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them— are no longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS.

Related topics