Quotes About Doubt

Nick had secretly wearied, if not of his wife, at least of the life that their marriage compelled him to lead. His passion was not strong enough-had never been strong enough—to outweigh his prejudices, scruples, principles, or whatever one chose to call them. Susy's dignity might go up like tinder in the blaze of her love; but his was made of a less combustible substance.

The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe.

He had to the full the courage of his lack of convictions.

Once or twice, in the first days of his marriage, he had asked himself with a slight shiver what would happen if Susy should begin to bore him. The thing had happened to him with other women as to whom his first emotions had not differed in intensity from those she inspired.

it were better to get simplicity, if certainty is not to be had

It is idle to hope for the enforcement of a law where nineteen-twentieths of the people do not believe in the justice of its provisions.

I believe in Hell because it's doctrinal, she said with a smile, but I don't think anyone's in it.

In the first dusk he walks back. Flowers and fallen confetti, from a wedding two days earlier, lie trodden on the wet grass and he knows in his heart that he is sure who he man was, but that nobody in the whole world, not even Tommy, not even Ivan, would believe him.

I swear if you existed I'd divorce you.

Knowing it--knowing it's true is one thing, but believing what you know... well, there's the tough part.

The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it.

It was unbelievable, there was the dry-cleaning ticket again. There must be more than one.

He was an inconsolable wreck. He couldn't live with so much doubt and so much intensity. He vomited colostrum over his mother and then in the hazy moment of emptiness that followed, he caught sight of the curtains bulging with light. They held his attention. That's how it worked here. They fascinated you with things to make you forget about the separation.

Control and certainty are myths.

When in doubt, look at the Lord. Lift up your eyes (Numbers 21:4–9). That will be something it will take all your life to master, but what better time to start than now? Still, you can't imagine being an invited worshiper of God.

Screwtape warns Wormwood] Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's [God's] will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.4

As immigrant artists for whom so much has been sacrificed, so many dreams have been deferred, we already doubt so much. Who do we think we are? We think we are people who risked not existing at all. People who might have had a mother and father killed, either by a government or nature, even before we were born. Some of us think we are accidents of literacy. I do.

The reason is that a man may see straight and clearly and yet become impatient or doubtful when the market takes its time about doing as he figured it must do. That is why so many men in Wall Street, who are not at all in the sucker class, not even in the third grade, nevertheless lose money. The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.

I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.

Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That is the only concrete problem I know of today.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem...

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.