Doubt

"Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."

"Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt there truth is—'tis her shadow."

"All doubt is cowardice — all trust is brave."

"Doubt is natural to a human being, for his conceptions are infinite, his powers are only finite."

"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone."

"We should never believe anything we have not dared to doubt."

"If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind."

"Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete."

"He would not, with a peremptory tone, Assert the nose upon his face his own."

"I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning."

"The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom."

"Another meme of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence. The story of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence. Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look for evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation. The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry."

"Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation..."

"Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe in everything."

"Incredulity doesn't kill curiosity; it encourages it."

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. ... it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. ... I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here ... I might think about it a little bit ... but I don't have to know an answer, I don't feel frightened about not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me."

"Doubt grows with knowledge."

"Is God fair? The Christians say that God damns forever anyone who is skeptical about truth of bunkistic religion as revealed unto the holy haranguers. What this means is that a God, if any, punishes a man for using his reason. If there is a God in existence, reasons should be available for his existence. Assuming that such a precious thing as a man's eternal future depends on his belief in a God, then the materials for that belief should be overwhelming and not at all doubtful. Yet here is a man whose reason makes it impossible for him to believe in a God. He sees no evidence of such an entity. He finds all the arguments weak and worthless. He doubts and he denies. Then is a God fair in visiting upon such a skeptic the penalty for his inevitable intellectual attitude? The intelligent man refuses to believe fairy tales. Can a God blame him? If so, then a God is not as fair as an ordinarily decent man. And fairness, we think, is more important than piety."

"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man."

"To rest upon a formula is a slumber that, prolonged, means death."

"Fear believes — courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays — courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism — courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion — courage is science."

"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous — if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men."

"I may be wrong, and often am, but I never doubt."

"Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will."

"I do think it strange that people have doubted everything and have again reached certainty, without as much as dropping a word concerning the difficulties which have held my thought captive—so much so that I have, now and then, longed to be freed of them—freed by the aid of one, note well, who was aware of these difficulties, and not of one who in his sleep had a notion to doubt, and to have doubted, everything, and again in his sleep had the notion that he is explaining, and has explained, all."

"What is clear to one man may be doubtful to another."

"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."

"Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it has been tested."

"She had learned to doubt, rather than simply to question."

"And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye."

"To know much is often the cause of doubting more."

"I should always like to follow in the path of Goethe when he said: "If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own"."

"The doubtful beam long nods from side to side."

"Believe it or not"

"We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt."

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

"William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite."

"The Vammika Sutta likens skeptical doubt to a fork in the road. Say a traveler who is carrying many valuables arrives at a fork in the road; if he lingers there unable to decide which way to take, robbers may catch and possibly kill him. In the same way, a doubtful meditator who falls prey to wavering and procrastination cannot continue on with practice. He or she will then become a victim of mental defilements and be unable to escape the cycle of suffering. Only when he or she abandons doubt by noting it and uninterruptedly continues the practice can he or she be liberated from the cycle of suffering."

"But yet, madam— I do not like, "but yet," it does allay The good precedence; fie upon "but yet!" "But yet" is a gaoler to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor."

"To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?"

"But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in To saucy doubts and fears."

"Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt."

"To be once in doubt Is once to be resolv'd."

"No hinge nor loop, To hang a doubt on."

"Modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise."

"Out of doubt comes faith."

"There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"Doubt, indeed, is the disease of this inquisitive, restless age. It is the price we pay for our advanced intelligence and civilization. It is the dim night of our resplendent day. But as the most beautiful light is born of darkness, so the faith which springs from conflict is often the strongest and the best."

"Only those who doubt really believe, and those who do not doubt are neither tempted against their faith nor do they truly believe."