“Death is the most certain and the most uncertain event there is.”

Source: The Last Messiah (1933), To Be a Human Being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4m6vvaY-Wo&t=1110s (1989–90)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 20, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Death is the most certain and the most uncertain event there is." by Peter Wessel Zapffe?
Peter Wessel Zapffe photo
Peter Wessel Zapffe 15
Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author 1899–1990

Related quotes

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“Nothing is more certain than death and nothing uncertain but its hour.”

Enguerrand VII de Coucy, quoted on p. 570
A Distant Mirror (1978)

Mark Twain photo
Thomas Paine photo
Robert Sheckley photo

“Still, no matter how commonplace, one’s death is the most interesting event of one’s life.”

Source: Immortality, Inc. (1959), Chapter 1 (p. 1)

Claude Adrien Helvétius photo

“Most events spring from causes equally small: we are unacquainted with them because most historians have been themselves ignorant of them, or have not had eyes capable of perceiving them. It is true, that, in this respect, the mind may repair their omissions; for the knowledge of certain principles easily compensates the lack of knowledge of certain facts.”

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) French philosopher

La plupart des évènements ont des causes aussi petites. Nous les ignorons, parce que la plupart des historiens les ont ignorées eux-mêmes, ou parce qu’ils n’ont pas eu d’yeux pour les appercevoir. Il est vrai qu’à cet égard l’esprit peut réparer leurs omissions : la connoissance de certains principes supplée facilement à la connoissance de certains faits.
Essay III, Chapter I
De l'esprit or, Essays on the Mind, and Its Several Faculties (1758)

Hugh Blair photo
Anatole France photo

“That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Il est sage de ne mettre ni crainte, ni espérance dans l’avenir incertain.
L’Étui de nacre: Le Procurateur de Judée http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Procurateur_de_Jud%C3%A9e [Mother of Pearl: The Procurator of Judea] (1892)

George Meade photo

“War is very uncertain in its results, and often when affairs look most desperate they suddenly assume a more hopeful state.”

George Meade (1815–1872) Union Army general

Letter to his wife Margaretta (11 June 1863); published in The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade (1913)

Bill Maher photo

“The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The Decider (21 July 2007)

Michel De Montaigne photo

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Related topics