quotations about doubt
Nothing is more durable than the dynasty of Doubt; for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die, while any of his subjects live.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
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Lacon
Doubt is a sentinel on the watch-tower of the brain, charged with the duty of sounding an alarm, whenever its enemies--superstition, falsehood, ignorance and unreason--attempt to invade the citadel of truth.
HENRY M. TABER
Faith or Fact
To doubt is never pleasant, often painful, sometimes agonizing. And in so far as this prompts to inquiry and urges us to decision, it is very useful; but when it induces us to decide without inquiry or evidence, or without the proper use of them, the result is like declaring victory before fighting the battle. If we were so constituted that we could not doubt, what security would there be for the truth? What could more cripple the mind than to deprive it either of the power doubting or the power of believing? To face frankly and fairly the terrors of uncertainty requires courage. Indeed, to think at all, responsibly, rationally, and with absolute fidelity to truth, upon many subjects requires the highest degree of courage. It is easier, perhaps, to stand before a loaded cannon and see the match applied, than to adopt a conclusion utterly destructive to past convictions long cherished, and to the authority upon which they rested.
LOGAN E. BLECKLEY
The Green Bag, Feb. 1892
Doubt is a surly, envious, egotistic emotion, a bitter denial of everything but the sullen self.
RUSSELL KIRK
The Conservative Mind
I must doubt everything, or realize my faith by exterminating every obstacle.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
G.C. LICHTENBERG
"Notebook F,", Aphorisms
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"The Triumph of Stupidity,", Mortals and Others
Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can't believe; unbelief is won't believe. Doubt is honesty; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with darkness.
HENRY DRUMMOND
How to Learn How
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
My soul's poisonous doubt is all-consuming. My soul is like the dead sea, over which no bird can fly; when it gets halfway, it sinks down spent to its death and destruction.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Either/or
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
"Brilliant Disguise", Tunnel of Love
Doubt is often but as the putting away of childish things, preparatory to the reception of the deeper things of manhood.
ALEXANDER HENRY CRAUFURD
Enigmas of the Spiritual Life
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
Suspect suspicion, and doubt only doubt.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Deceit"
With knowledge grows doubt.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
Doubt is excellent when it is a question of securing what we already possess, but it can be fatal if it impedes us in pursuit of what we seek.
CARLOS FUENTES
Terra Nostra
Doubt, genuine doubt, is a good thing; not as an end, mark you, for so it is deadly, but as a means to an end.
DAVID JAMES BURRELL
The Gospel of Gladness
Doubt is often as that angel that troubled the waters of old, so that they might become a source of healing to the crippled and diseased.
ALEXANDER HENRY CRAUFURD
Enigmas of the Spiritual Life
Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.
THOMAS SZASZ
"Mental Illness,", The Second Sin