Quotes About Doubt

I avoid making sentences with "is" or its relatives in them because all such sentences have definite semantic defects, the first of which consists in the fact that they make it appear as if one has reached the unreachable 1/1 of proven truth, when in fact one usually only has strong maybe, and (especially in politics and Ideology) sometimes only a weak maybe.

It was mass hallucination. It was not mass hallucination. It was both mass hallucination and not mass hallucination. It was neither mass hallucination nor not mass hallucination.

Yes, it was mass hallucination. No, it was not mass hallucination. Maybe it was mass hallucination.

The trouble with being an agnostic is that you are always wondering, a bit. That's what a-gnosis means: you lack the Inner Certainty of those Fully Enlightened Beings like the Pope or the Ayatollah or some Marxists we have all encountered.

Remember that this computer is only a few decades ahead of present technology, so it cannot "understand" your commands if you harbor any doubts about them. Doubts tell it not to perform. Work always from what you can believe in, extending the area of belief only as results encourage you to try for more dramatic transformations of your past reality-tunnels.

If you believe in it, you can almost see it. Or, at least, you can convince yourself that anything else is mere appearance or hallucination.

Orthodoxies of all sorts are maintained by partly the intolerance I have been documenting and partly by — simple lack of curiosity. Heresy is not-tuned-in, if one already has certitude.

The only escape from this trap, as far as I can see, is to be skeptical about one's own skepticism: which is what I mean by the New Agnosticism.

All appearances seem to be facts, at first, to those to whom they appear.

The human mind is ingenious enough to prove or disprove any proposition, to its own satisfaction

Afterlife is no less implausible than anything else,' I said. 'All explanations of existence are equally incredible.' 'So you might as well believe something that makes you feel good as not

Are you trying to compromise my manhood?" I said. "Oh, yeah, that," she said. "Now and then I forget.

Sam, what do you think happened?

Just because it's printed somewhere, that's no reason you have to believe it any more than if you saw it." Harry blinked. "I never thought of that angle before.

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all! Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men.

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

God never does nothing wrong [...]. He's always loving, fair, honest'n pure, like the preachers say. He knows everthing and He's more powerful than anything else or anybody who's ever lived nor never's gonna live. I believe that. I got to. But sometimes, when things happen, it's all so hard to take in. Our brains is just too puny. And the question is"—she's sobbing now—"why didn't He make them bigger?

On the wall over his head as he worked was a framed quote from President Calvin Coolidge: "Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.

I asked people about you, and those people said if you were looking for a guy, then you probably found him. I just can't figure why you won't come clean." "Maybe they're wrong." He nodded. "Could be." "But maybe I just don't like being muscled, so I'm being petulant.

In fact, it wasn't evidence at all, but I didn't want to be a defeatist.

Stemms sniffed the air loudly, like a dog catching a scent. "I'm smelling bullshit." Harvey spoke again, voice mellow and calm, like a jazz man at two in the morning. "Relax, Jesse. What does she look like? Describe her.

Maybe he's just some guy. Maybe he doesn't have anything to do with why she left or why she took the money." Meryl Lawrence made a tiny self-loathing snort. "I'll ask her if you can find her." I took the envelope. She watched me put it away but didn't look any less unhappy with herself or relieved. "Thank you." "I promised." She gave me a rueful smile. "If

Stegner finally spoke, a quiet voice in the backseat darkness. "Please don't kill me." Pike didn't answer. Isabel should have left the house by then. She should have reached the lifeguard stand. She should be safe. Pike told himself these things, but found no solace. All the shoulds in the world meant nothing. Isabel would not be safe until he reached her.

We asked the people at the flower shop if they had seen anything, but they hadn't. We asked every shopkeeper in the strip mall and most of the employees, but they all said no. I hoped they had seen something to indicate that Karen was safe, but deep down, where your blood runs cold, I knew they hadn't.