Certainties

He could take the certainties in life – birth, death, taxes – but the uncertainties: G-d spare him.

There are few certainties in life, but the big two most people will point to are death and taxes.

Those are the certainties of the Cretaceous Period exchange that were encased in time until this week, when a team of paleontologists revealed the stunning fossil in a paper in Scientific Reports.

Thus, until his realization under the “firm blue vault,’ Levin’s in a constant state of alienation amongst his fellows, his only certainties his love for Kitty and his love for his land.

Victories become defeats and certainties mutate into conundrums as the minutes creep closer to the end of the world for our heroes.

Although the Scottish climate provides few certainties, the natural of our landscapes can be taken for granted.

Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden are certainties to be selected, but Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford might be sweating on their place.

One of the biggest curiosities for Arsenal was how one of the rock-solid certainties of the campaign has deserted them.

Yet much of the doubtful mood in the country has to do precisely with the fact that old certainties about what is “typically German” no longer hold.

According to Benjamin Franklin, there are two certainties in life: death and taxes.

But the long trip south had turned Marion’s doubts into certainties.

His platform has been described as the most progressive of any presidential candidate in history, unfolding in a year that has seen the coronavirus pandemic and mass protests against racial injustice smash old certainties.

There are three certainties here: (1) Lord Favre loves his money; (2) local governments in that part of the country aren’t necessarily gleaming examples of anti-corruption; and (3) the whole story is not yet known.

Brad Keller and Jakob Junis are the only certainties among starters and closer Ian Kennedy was the only reliable relief option last season.

Cape Town — Scotland, on our shores on July 4 and 11 next year, seem betting certainties as South Africa's first post-World Cup opponents.

Needless to say, the official ratification of Britain leaving the EU was the final blow and what were initially only questions and uncertainty became radical and unquestionable certainties informing decisions.

While younger eastern Europeans looked to the west for work and inspiration, the elderly, used to the certainties of state provision, bore the brunt of the transition.

Fast forward to the present where no certainties whatsoever exist; defined art categories, gender, nationalities, predictable seasons, political protocols are constantly shifting and morphing.

If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he’d have to amend his belief that death and taxes are life’s only certainties and add a third — Rafael Nadal winning the French Open.

In that sense, Orlando feels like an artifact from and for the future, a character who refuses to be bound by conventions, and who invites us to consider the possibility that all of our certainties are in fact contingencies.