Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes

You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.

The quest for certainty in forecasting outcomes can be the enemy of progress.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.

Entrepreneurs have only the murkiest picture of the future in which they are making their bets, and also there is ambiguity: they don't know when they push this lever or that lever that the outcome is going to be what they think it is going to be - there is the law of unanticipated consequences.

It is often more important to act than to understand... there are times... when two conflicting opinions, though one happens to be right, are more perilous than one opinion which is wrong.

One cannot always be right in our complex world; no dishonor attends an incorrect choice among plausible outcomes drawn from a properly constructed argument.

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

When the President is a moralist, he needs a process that will make up for the natural shortcomings of such a style—an inattention to second-step thinking, an allergy to detail, a tendency not to see the point of having dissenters, a habit of allowing certainty to override considerations of risk. It is the National Security Advisor’s responsibility to fill a President’s strategic gaps, not to exacerbate them.

Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and then make our plans with confidence.

In strategic decisions, I'd be really concerned about overconfidence.

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.

If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal.

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Confusion is better than stupid conclusions. In confusion, there is still a possibility. In stupid conclusion, there is no possibility.

We falsely interpret the world around us. We ignore evidence that doesn't support our prior beliefs and we convince ourselves we know things we don. We think we know things we don't know.

There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable.

To cut off the confusion and accept an answer just because it's too scary not to have an answer is a good way to get the wrong answer.

The entrepreneurial mind-set is that risk is the heightened probability that there is a big range of possible outcomes.

With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence should be thrown into the other to correct the balance. The greater they are, the greater the margin that can be left for accidents.

If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.