quotations about doubt
When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
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.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Like belief, doubt takes a lot of different forms, from ancient Skepticism to modern scientific empiricism, from doubt in many gods to doubt in one God, to doubt that recreates and enlivens faith and doubt that is really disbelief.
JENNIFER MICHAEL HECHT
introduction, Doubt: A History
Doubt is a profound and effective spiritual motivator. Without doubt, no truism is transcended, no new knowledge found, no expansion of the imagination possible. Doubt is unsettling to the ego, and those who are drawn to ideologies that promise the dispelling of doubt by proffering certainties will never grow. In seeking certainty they are courting the death of the soul, whose nature is forever churning possibility, forever seeking the larger, forever riding the melting edge of certainty's glacier.
JAMES HOLLIS
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Honourable Schoolboy
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.
ROBERT TURNBULL
Life Pictures from a Pastor's Notebook
My Master said, on another Occasion, that those who doubt most, always erred least.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief.
CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE
Values in a Universe of Chance
Doubt is the difficult mind state of perplexity. It's like being at a crossroads and now knowing which way to go. We go back and forth between alternatives and are then brought to a standstill by bewilderment and indecision. When doubt is overpowering, we can't move. It doesn't even allow us the opportunity to take a wrong turn and learn from our mistakes.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
One Dharma