Doubt

"Those who do not doubt do not believe. Faith is maintained by resolving doubts, and again resolving those further doubts which are suggested by the resolution of previous doubts."

"La doute n'est pas un état bien agréable, mais l'assurance est un état ridicule."

"Doubt is for the dying."

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity."

"Non men che saver, dubbiar m'aggrata."

"Uncertain ways unsafest are, And doubt a greater mischief than despair."

"Vous ne prouvez que trop que chercher à connaître N'est souvent qu' apprendre à douter."

"Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized."

"When in doubt, win the trick."

"He who dallies is a dastard, He who doubts is damned."

"But the gods are dead— Ay, Zeus is dead, and all the gods but Doubt, And doubt is brother devil to Despair!"

"Fain would I but dare not; I dare, and yet I may not; I may, although I care not for pleasure when I play not."

"And he that doubteth is damned if he eat."

"To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting."

"I follow my law and fulfil it all duly—and look! when your doubt runneth high— North points to the needle!"

"Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door."

"You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" In such an hour what remains? I reply, "Obedience." Leave those thoughts for the present. Act — be merciful and gentle — honest; force yourself to abound in little services; try to do good to others; be true in the duty that you know. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain. And by all the laws of the human heart, by the word of God, you shall not be left to doubt. Do that much of the will of God which is plain to you, and "You shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.""

"To get rid of your doubts, part with your sin. Put away your intemperance, your dishonesty, your unlawful ways of making money, your sensuality, your falsehood, acted or spoken, and see if a holy life be not the best disperser of unwelcome doubts, and new obedience the most certain guide to fresh assurance."

"Fear not to confront realities. The Saviour lives; and the first joy that you will give to Him is when, leaving off your false excuses, you throw yourself with a full heart and empty hands into His arms of mercy. The Saviour lives; and were you now to die looking for salvation only from that Friend of Sinners, verily this day should you be with Him in a better than Adam's paradise. The Saviour lives; and in full sympathy with that wondrous lover of men's souls, the Holy Spirit is even now ready if besought to begin His sanctifying process in your mind. The Saviour lives; and even now He stretches out toward you an arm which, if you only grasp in thankful love, your faith shall strengthen while you cling, and it will be from no weakness in that arm, if you are not erelong exalted to a point of holy attainment which at this moment you view with despair, and by and by to that region of unveiled realities where you will ask in wonder at yourself, "Wherefore did I doubt?""

"Cold hearts are not anxious enough to doubt. Men who love will have their misgivings at times; that is not the evil. But the evil is, when men go on in that languid, doubting way, content to doubt, proud of their doubts, morbidly glad to talk about them, liking the romantic gloom of twilight, without the manliness to say, "I must and will know the truth." That did not John the Baptist. Brethren, John appealed to Christ."

"People, when asked if they are Christians, give some of the strangest answers you ever heard. Some will say if you ask them: "Well — well — well, I, — I hope I am." Suppose a man should ask me if I am an American. Would I say: "Well, I — well, I — I hope I am?""