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About this quote

What does it mean?
It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
In plain terms
Uncertainty itself may be uncertain.
What can you take from it?
Question the absolute nature of doubt.

Where it applies

  • philosophical debate
  • scientific modeling

Putting it to work

  • examine assumptions
  • embrace probabilistic thinking

Questions to consider

  • Can certainty exist without uncertainty?
  • What does this imply for knowledge?

Another view

The statement can be self‑defeating.

More from Blaise Pascal

  1. It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river; true on this side of the Pyrenees, false on the other. (294)

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  3. Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them happy, as against reason, which only makes its friends wretched: one covers them with glory, the other wi…

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