Quotes about probability (2731 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I think that living only from writing is a privilege, in economic terms, that only some writers have achieved and to which, probably, all authors aspire: a difficult goal that is not impossible.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Original: Pienso que vivir solo de la escritura es un privilegio, en términos económicos, que solo algunos escritores y escritoras han conseguido y al que, probablemente, todos los autores aspiramos: una meta difícil que no imposible.
Source: Cazas Fernández, A. (2022). "La escritura le aportó sentido, coherencia e identidad a mi vida". En Correo Gallego. https://www.elcorreogallego.es/el-correo-2/la-escritura-le-aporto-sentido-coherencia-e-identidad-a-mi-vida-AP10794051. Consultado el 16 de junio de 2022.

Thinking

“In order to see the boundaries of the probabilities, need to try impossible.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

During the fall of Constantinople, when he said that the ships would pass by land.

“She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?"

You'd probably kick my butt."

YouI'd kick your butt."

I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable… Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal."

Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?"

Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-"

Oh, you so wanted to."

Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking…" My throat felt really dry.

Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft.

I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.

You're laughing at me," I complained.

I am not!"

You arenot making this easy."

Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands
around my neck. "I am never, going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

God , World , Smile , Thinking

“As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The First Notebook
No Longer Human

“If I'm in a bad mood, or if I'm uncomfortable, it's probably what I'm wearing that's making me feel that way.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Bad luck , Way , Making love , Feeling

“If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“In order to see the boundaries of the probabilities, need to try impossible.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

When he said that the ships would pass by land
Source: Ahmet Akgündüz - Mehmed's tolerance http://www.ahmetakyol.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9849&Itemid=47

“If people hate you, then you're probably doing something right”

Amy Lee (1981) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Hate , People

“Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Idea , Success

“Today it is generally accepted that although the earliest humans probably ate some meat, it was unlikely to have played a major role in their diet. Plants would have been a much more important source of food.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Harvest for Hope (2006)

Food

“Probably, the eccentricities of those who visited the establishment meant nothing to him, especially if they were accompanied by a generous tip.”

José Baroja book El hombre del terrón de azúcar y otros cuentos

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Edwin Grant Conklin (1863–1952) American biologist and zoologist

Quoted in: Cliffe Knechtle (1986) Give Me an Answer, p. 70

Life

“He's probably the world's most beautiful-looking man, yet he doesn't think that he's gorgeous. And to me, he's just smelly, farty Leo.
- Kate Winslet (Vanity Fair, January 1998)”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

About

World , Beauty , Thinking

“I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people (Romeo and Juliet) took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

People , Chance

“How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.

"Almost seven years."
"Then you have probably forgotten all about it."

"Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten me, I have always thought about it.”

José Rizal book Noli Me Tángere

Source: Noli Me Tángere

Country

“Sometimes I think I should just buy a blow-up party doll. Same level of intelligence, plastic, and full of air.

The problem is, I'd probably fall in love.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

Love , Intelligence , Problem , Thinking

“Tell us you lost 6 million. Historians, scholars, scientists, they went to some of the death camps. It wasn't 6 million, it wasn't 5 million, it wasn't 4 million, it wasn't even 3 million. Some of them say we'd be hard-pressed to get 1 1/2 million. Reports on the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were bloated, exaggerated, probably fabricated.”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Speech in Brooklyn, New York (29 March 1994) quoted in Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present (2002) by Marvin Perry and Frederick Schweitzer

Death

“…the relatively unconscious man driven by his natural impulses because, imprisoned in his familiar world, he clings to the commonplace, the obvious, the probable, the collectively valid, using for his motto: 'Thinking is difficult. Therefore, let the herd pronounce judgement.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Frequently misquoted as "Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge" and close variants.
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. (1959), C.G. Jung, R.F.C. Hull (translator) (Princeton Press, 1979, ISBN 9780691018225

World , Nature , Thinking

“For all the folks getting excited about my quotes. Here is another - Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

@rasmus http://twitter.com/rasmus/status/12481790397

Quotes

“Violence is sometimes a very practical solution but I don’t think it is the ultimate solution. Owning a gun is not OK for me. But I could argue both sides. Why shouldn’t people own them? I’m not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon but I think it has complications. It’s probably not the wisest idea. Obviously, it has consequences. Personally, I do not own a weapon.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Idea , Thinking , People , Personality

“I'm probably going to delete Twitter. Instagram is not as bad because I can't really see what people say, but [on] Twitter it's just so easy to see everything. So I'm probably going to have to end up deleting that.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"Sunisa Lee Says She's 'Going to Delete Twitter' So She Can Focus on Preparing for Beam Final" in People (1 August 2021) https://people.com/sports/tokyo-olympics-sunisa-lee-going-to-delete-twitter-focus-preparing-beam-final/

People

“I'll probably cool down a little bit and just focus on what I need to do especially because we're coming to the end. I want to just do the best I can and end it off good.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

Source: "Sunisa Lee Says She's 'Going to Delete Twitter' So She Can Focus on Preparing for Beam Final" in People (1 August 2021) https://people.com/sports/tokyo-olympics-sunisa-lee-going-to-delete-twitter-focus-preparing-beam-final/

“There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speech in http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020917-7.html Nashville, Tennessee, (September 17, 2002), in which the president confused a centuries-old proverb ("Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.")
2000s, 2002

Fools

“This is probably the advantage of being stupid. Stupid people just do. We tend to overthink. If we could eliminate the “over” and just think, then we could do, too. Only we’d be smarter doers because we’d be thinkers.”

Sarah Strohmeyer Smart Girls Get What They Want

Source: Smart Girls Get What They Want

People , Stupidity , Thinking

“She glared at me like she was about to punch me, but then she did something that surprised me even more. She kissed me.
"Be careful seaweed brain." She said putting on her invisible cap and disappearing.
I probably would have sat there all day, trying to remember my name, but then the sea demons came.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Kiss , Sea

“the vase once had an extremely common use. Most probably it was used for cooking-oil. It was made by a designer of those times, when art and life went hand in hand and there was no such thing as a work of art to look at and just any old thing to use. I”

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) Italian artist and designer

Source: Design as Art

Life , Art , Time , Cooking

“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Life , Lying

“I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Pain , Feeling , Thinking , Personality

“If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“Are you crazy?""
""Probably”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

The Last Olympian

“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Benefit Of Clergy: Some Notes On Salvador Dalí," Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture (1944) http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/english/e_dali

Life , Lying

“Scientific education for the masses will do little good, and probably a lot of harm, if it simply boils down to more physics, more chemistry, more biology, etc to the detriment of literature and history. Its probable effect on the average human being would be to narrow the range of his thoughts and make him more than ever contemptuous of such knowledge as he did not possess.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"What is Science?" http://orwell.ru/library/articles/science/english/e_scien, Tribune (26 October 1945)

Education , History , Literature , Knowledge

“I've found a place that would amaze you. People used to live there, but now it's all overgrown and no one goes there. Absolutely no one — only me… Just a little house and a garden. And two dogs. If you could see how they licked my hands, and their puppies — oh, Primus, there's probably nothing more beautiful! You take them on your lap and cuddle them, and just sit there until sundown not thinking about anything and not worrying about anything. Then when you get up you feel as though you've done a hundred times more than a lot of work. Really, I'm not good for much of anything. Everyone says I'm not cut out for any kind of work. I don't know what I'm good for.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

People , Beauty , Dogs , Feeling

“It's interesting… there are two different kinds of dinosaurs - the bird-hip and the lizard-hip dinosaur. Their hips are very different. Ask an evolutionist, "Which type of dinosaur evolved into the bird? Was it the bird-hip or the lizard-hip?" And they will probably kind of hang their head and quietly say, "Well, it was the lizard-hip." Oh, so now the hip's got to turn around backwards too in addition to the billions of other changes you've got to make. There's no evidence of how dinosaurs evolved to birds. None.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Lies in the textbooks

Bird , Change

“One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

The Prevention of Literature (1946)

“It should be borne in mind that electrical energy obtained by harnessing a waterfall is probably fifty times more effective than fuel energy. Since this is the most perfect way of rendering the sun's energy available, the direction of the future material development of man is clearly indicated.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Source: A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

Way , Time , Sun , Future

“It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

On FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as quoted in The New York Times (31 October 1971).
1970s

“We used to think that Hitler was wicked when he wanted to kill all the Jews, but what Kennedy and Macmillan and others both in the East and in the West pursue policies which will probably lead to killing not only all the Jews but all the rest of us too. They are much more wicked than Hitler and this idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly and absolutely horrible and it is a thing which no man with one spark of humanity can tolerate and I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising the massacre of the whole of mankind. I will do anything I can to oppose such Governments in any non-violent way that seems likely to be fruitful, and I should exhort all of you to feel the same way. We cannot obey these murderers. They are wicked and abominable. They are the wickedest people that ever lived in the history of man and it is our duty to do what we can.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s

People , Way , Feeling , History

“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

From a review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, New English Weekly (21 March 1940)

Life , Death , Pain , War

“Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Fear , Imagination , Appearance

“The cycle of violence will continue far into the new millennium. Hopes for peace will probably not be realized, because the great that shape the international system fear each other and compete for power as a result. Indeed, their ultimate aim is to gain a position of dominant power over others, because having dominant power is the best means to ensure one's own survival.”

John Mearsheimer book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Preface, p. xi
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001)

Fear , Peace , Hope

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval. The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup>
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

People , Feeling , Literature , Question

“If you are not capable of cruelty, then you are absolutely a victim of anyone who is. For those who are exceedingly agreeable, there is a part of them crying out for the incorporation of the monster within them, which is what gives them strength of character and self-respect, because it is impossible to respect yourself until you grow teeth. And if you grow teeth, you realize that you're somewhat dangerous, or seriously dangerous. Then you might be more willing to demand that you treat yourself with respect and that other people do the same thing. That doesn't mean that being cruel is better than not being cruel. What it means is that being able to be cruel, and then not being cruel, is better than not being able to be cruel, because in the first case you're nothing but weak and naive, and in the second case you're dangerous but you have it under control. If you're competent at fighting, it actually decreases the probability that you're going to have to fight, because when someone pushes you you'll be able to respond with confidence, and with any luck a reasonable show of confidence, which is a show of dominance, will be enough to make the bully back off.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLc_MC7NQek&t=0s "2017 Personality 04/05: Heroic and Shamanic Initiations"

People , Confidence , Fight , Parting

“He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is only probable. He does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment…
The philosophical spirit is, then, a spirit of observation and exactness, which relates everything to true principles…”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Article on Philosophy, Vol. 25, p. 667, as quoted in Main Currents of Western Thought : Readings in Western European Intellectual History from the Middle Ages to the Present (1978) by Franklin Le Van Baumer
Variant translation: Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian. Grace moves the Christian to act, reason moves the philosopher. Other men walk in darkness; the philosopher, who has the same passions, acts only after reflection; he walks through the night, but it is preceded by a torch. The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. … He does not confuse truth with plausibility; he takes for truth what is true, for forgery what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. … The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy.
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)
Context: Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian.
Grace causes the Christian to act, reason the philosopher. Other men are carried away by their passions, their actions not being preceded by reflection: these are the men who walk in darkness. On the other hand, the philosopher, even in his passions, acts only after reflection; he walks in the dark, but by a torch.
The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. Most people adopt principles without thinking of the observations that have produced them, they believe the maxims exist, so to speak, by themselves. But the philosopher takes maxims from their source; he examines their origin; he knows their proper value, and he makes use of them only in so far as they suit him.
Truth is not for the philosopher a mistress who corrupts his imagination and whom he believes to be found everywhere; he contents himself with being able to unravel it where he can perceive it. He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is only probable. He does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment...
The philosophical spirit is, then, a spirit of observation and exactness, which relates everything to true principles...

Perfection , Falseness

“As we grow up we learn that even the person that wasn't supposed to ever let
you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once
and it gets harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt
when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new
love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and
you'll eventually lose someone you love, so take many pictures, laugh too much
and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is one minute of happiness you'll never get back.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Hurt , Time , Personality , Heart

“Dawn meet the light,
and the twillight the moon
all are mirages
on labyrinth of mind,
ever since time waking.
Do you think that our existence
makes any difference
to this vast universe?
Did we just happen
or were we meant to happen?
In the universal scheme of things,
we stand nowhere.
We may manage to survive in it,
but we have no control upon it,
except in the little space and time
that we create for ourselves.
We are little possibilities
in the endless probabilities of the universe.”

Alexis Karpouzos book An Ocean of souls

“As to a pseudonym, a name I always use when tramping etc is P. S. Burton, but if you don't think this sounds a probable kind of name, what about Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, H. Lewis Allways. I rather favour George Orwell.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Letter to Leonard Moore (19 November 1932)
Source: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, George Orwell: An Age Like This, 1920–1940, Editors: Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus. p. 106.

Thinking

“Michael Jackson was probably the biggest mentor I've ever had”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

“I think dancers are paid not for what they do, but for the fear they feel. What you do is probably not that difficult: you just get on stage. It is, however, fear that gives you the push.”

Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993) Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer

Source: Gervaso, Roberto. La mosca al naso, Rizzoli Editore (1980)

Thinking , Fear , Feeling

“I will probably be too much for some people.

Those people are not My People.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People

“That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much - in just standing and staring and I was at it again this morning.”

James Herriot (1916–1995) veterinary surgeon and writer

Source: It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet

Life , Time , Parting

“If there were such a thing as an inter-city thieving contest, Ankh-Morpork would bring home the trophy and probably everyone’s wallets.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

Home

“Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that she doesn't fall into it - he will become a mystic or a madman… Which is probably the same thing!”

Apostolos Doxiadis (1953) Greek writer

Source: Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Source: As quoted in "My Philosophy of Industry" an interview of Ford by Fay Leone Faurote, The Forum, Vol. 79, No. 4 (April 1928), p. 481;

also in "Thinking Is Hardest Work, Therefore Few Engage in It", San Francisco Chronicle (13 April 1928), p. 25;

both articles are cited as the primary sources of other variants which later arose, in https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/05/so-few "Thinking Is the Hardest Work There Is, which Is the Probable Reason Why So Few Engage In It" in Quote Investigator (5 April 2016)

Thinking

“[Whose_property]Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Osteopathy” (1901), in Mark Twain's Speeches, p. 253 http://books.google.com/books?id=jmhaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA253&dq=%22Whose+property+is+my+body%22
Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

“Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act II
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Way

“If I tell you I'm good, probably you will say I'm boasting. But if I tell you I'm not good, you'll know I'm lying.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Lying

“He's probably their battle poet, too."
"You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?"
"No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy…. When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Training

“Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Love

“In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: Essays in Love

Hate , Thinking , Chance

“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Learning

“Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Pain

“Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. VIII
Following the Equator (1897)

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

Bear Grylls book Mud, Sweat, and Tears

Source: Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The Autobiography

Graduation

“I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

As quoted in "The Joking Troubadour of Gloom" in The Daily Telegraph (26 April 1993) http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/feb93.htm
Context: I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin. … I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I've always been free from hope. It's never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we're invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful..... I think that it was Ben Jonson who said, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.

Feeling , Thinking , Waiting

“Someone got killed up here…. It was outside. A tall man. He had one leg longer’n the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter."
"How’d you know all that?"
"I just trod on ‘im.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Deep , Understanding , Silence

“… the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2004, Interview by Wallace Shawn, 2004
Context: You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people http://www.bible.org/netbible/1sa15.htm to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful.

Books

“I am probably exaggerating a little, but I owe my equilibrium to ink and paper.”

Julien Green (1900–1998) American author

“The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.”

Jack Kerouac book Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

Source: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

Truth

“I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

People , Daughters

“And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Source: Discourse on Method

Life , Truth

“But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which to be honest was almost a relief.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Love , Life , Way

“He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain

Sense

“The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Speech of the Sub-Treasury (1839), Collected Works 1:178 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;view=text;idno=lincoln1;rgn=div1;node=lincoln1:193
Variant (misspelling): The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; and it shall not deter me.
1830s
Context: Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.

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