Our ignorance of the future has been wisely ordained of Heaven. For unless man were to be like God and know everything, it is better that he should know nothing. If he knows one fact only, instead of profiting by it he will assuredly land in the soup.

Everyone is wrong about the future. Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know the present? Is he in a position to make any judgment about it? Certainly not. For how can a person with no knowledge of the future understand the meaning of the present? If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred?

Well, with prophecy you got to see what happens.

Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to start developing those technologies right away. Ergo, we do not know what we will know.

If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.

Knowledge is of no real value if all you can tell me is what happened yesterday. It is necessary to tell what will happen tomorrow if you do something — not only necessary, but fun. Only you must be willing to stick your neck out.

To understand the future, you do not need technoautistic jargon, obsession with “killer apps,” these sort of things. You just need the following: some respect for the past, some curiosity about the historical record, a hunger for the wisdom of the elders, and a grasp of the notion of “heuristics,” these often unwritten rules of thumb that are so determining of survival. In other words, you will be forced to give weight to things that have been around, things that have survived.

What prophecy actually is is not that you actually know that the bomb will fall in 1942. It’s that you know and feel something that somebody knows and feels in a hundred years. And maybe articulate it in a hint — a concrete way that they can pick up on in a hundred years.

The future is unknown. Prophecy contaminates it with the past, which is why liberated people do not bother with fortunetelling or astrology, and why the happy traveler wanders and does not let himself be the slave of maps, guidebooks, and schedules, using them but not being used by them.

There are two kinds of people, I think: those who want to know the future and those who do not. I've never met anyone ambivalent about this. I have been both kinds. For now, I think I know which one is better, but I'm prepared to change my mind again. It may be I am like that drunk who tells himself he can handle his alcohol now. But if I told you I could tell the future, you would laugh at me. And I would laugh at me too.

Knowing the future is part of that future's past. Perhaps the foreseen happens because we try to change it.

The mind seeks clarity, but our souls prefer to wander into ambiguity. It's OKAY to not know your future. It's acceptable to have no idea what you want to do. Don't let anyone trick you into thinking otherwise.
An offer, opportunity, breakthrough, or brain wave could happen at any moment and change the trajectory of your life. Surely the key to life is being open to such a possibility.
Let none of us be fooled into thinking we need to know what the future holds. Everyone's been brainwashed into thinking they know or should know. We'll be alright if we simply keep moving forward. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. So next time someone asks about your five-year plan, maybe shrug your shoulders and admit, "I don't know - I'm happy to see where life takes me."

From the shape of a cloud I know that a man in a distant city will quarrel with his wife three seasons hence and a murderer will be hanged before I finish speaking. From the falling of a stone I know the number of maidens being seduced and the movements of icebergs on the other side of the world. From the texture of the wind I know where next the lightning will fall. So long have I watched and so much am I part of all things, that nothing is hidden from me."
"You know where I go?"
"Yes."
"And what I would do there?"
"I know that, too."
"Then tell me if you know, will I succeed in that which I desire?"
"You will succeed in that which you are about, but by then it may not be what you desire."
"I do not understand you, Morningstar."
"I know that, too. But that is the way it is with all oracles, Jack. When that which is foreseen comes to pass, the inquirer is no longer the same person he was when he posed the question. It is impossible to make a man understand what he will become with the passage of time; and it is only a future self to whom a prophecy is truly relevant."

People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.