Life and Probability

"Probability is the very guide of life." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "De Natura Deorum" ["On the Nature of the Gods"], 45 BC)

"In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. […] we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow." (Baruch Spinoza, [letter to Hugo Boxel, 1674)

"[…] to us, probability is the very guide of life." (Joseph Butler, "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature", 1736)

"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular." (Edward Gibbon, "Memoirs of My Life", 1774)

"The most important questions of life are indeed, for the most part, really only problems of probability." (Pierre-Simon Laplace,  "Analytical Theory of Probability, 1812)

"The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which of times they are unable to account." (Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Analytical Theory of Probability, 1812)

"Life is a school of probability. " (Walter Bagehot, 1855)

"The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale." (Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker", 1986)

"We can never achieve absolute truth but we can live hopefully by a system of calculated probabilities. The law of probability gives to natural and human sciences - to human experience as a whole - the unity of life we seek." (Agnes E Meyer,  "Education for a New Morality", 1957)