DOUBT QUOTES IV

quotations about doubt

The moment one comes into contact with others, doubt is bound, sooner or later, to penetrate the armor of unquestioning repetition. The first reaction of communities to such doubts is to try to exterminate it by repression, varying from hard glances and ostracism to the burning of the doubter. But these methods of the Bastille, the Inquisition, and the fires of Smithfield, cannot succeed while the cause of the doubt, the actual diversity of belief in the world remains.

MORRIS R. COHEN

The New Republic, Oct. 26, 1921


Sometimes we think doubt is not good, but doubt is important. It's not so important that we should become crazy from it, but if you are questioning, that's fine. We need to question. Even though you don't get answers to your questions, all you have to do is just swim.

DAININ KATAGIRI

Each Moment Is the Universe


With knowledge grows doubt.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Doubt is the whetstone of understanding.

JOHN DOS PASSOS

U.S.A.


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


Doubt is one of the main paths on the highway to failure.

RICK PITINO & BILL REYNOLDS

Success Is a Choice


Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. Doubt is the precursor of inquiry; inquiry leads to Evidence; Evidence is the foundation of Knowledge; and Knowledge is the parent of Liberty and Power. Concerning skeptics a philosophical writer once remarked, "That they are men who pick holes in the fabric of Knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly mended, the whole of the building becomes more firm and solid than it was before."

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS

The Present Age and Inner Life


Doubt is like a cloud which steals over the mind and prevents it from perceiving clearly, and from solving any problem concerning that which is perceived. Like a cloud, doubt increases or decreases in size and density as one fails to act according to his understanding, or is self-reliant and acts with confidence. Yet doubt is a condition of the mind necessary to be experienced and overcome before clearness of mental vision can be obtained.

HAROLD W. PERCIVAL

The Word, July 1908


God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

"Brilliant Disguise", Tunnel of Love


I must doubt everything, or realize my faith by exterminating every obstacle.

SABINE BARING-GOULD

The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity


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


Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.

JAMES ALLEN

As a Man Thinketh


The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.

SAUL ALINSKY

Rules for Radicals


Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom; therefore, when we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained a something that will stay by us, and which will serve us again. But, if to avoid the trouble of the search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought but borrowed it.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


Doubt is a surly, envious, egotistic emotion, a bitter denial of everything but the sullen self.

RUSSELL KIRK

The Conservative Mind


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 not the opposite of confidence. Doubt can actually be a virtue; it is a form of self-reflection that anyone in a leadership position should exercise now and again. Having doubts about a course of action is a manifestation of a creative and lively mind, one that is engaged in the pursuit of a goal. The ability to question that pursuit means that you are open to change and circumstance. You may change or you may not, but at least you are open to the real world and the twists and turns it may toss you.

JOHN BALDONI

Lead By Example


Doubt is a ghastly apparition.

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit


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

Lacon


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