Quotes About Doubt

Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough.

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.

But how do we know? How are we supposed to understand such experiences—and such people? How do we make sense of them? How do we separate the special from the specious? Must we believe everyone's claim unreservedly, or may we doubt, test their veracity, or even laugh out loud at the absurdity of some?

supernatural Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration

These things were as the bones of the Universe—facts beyond doubting—if they were not true, nothing anywhere was anything but a dream.

This is what I see," becomes replaced by a question: "Is this what I see?" You share his hesitations about the positions of a tree or a branch; or the final shape of Mont Ste-Victoire, and the trees in front of it. Relativity is all. Doubt becomes part of the painting's subject.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." [ Modernism's Patriarch ( Time Magazine , June 10, 1996)]

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

Indeed, the idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne's old age, is one of the keys to our century. A touchstone of modernity itself.

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

I call this second phenomenon the Better-Deal Theory, which states: Before a person closes a deal, it's human nature for him to worry that there may be a better deal down the road.

him there?" asked Jess.

Often you don't know whether a woman is friend, enemy or lover until it is too late. Sometimes, she is all three.

The burden of proof is now on the doubters.

Examine everything; not all is as it seems or as people tell you.

If we require some kind of sign, or "proof," for our belief in God, then we believe, or place our tust, not in God but in the sign or proof.

Not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is—nor yet so good a Christian.

I will catch Christ with a greased worm.

A man's weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it.

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, its always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Born-again living seemed to me just a crutch which no longer facilitated healing and growth, but actually protracted immaturity.

I once sheepishly asked a prominent Evangelical apologist, with his PhD in New Testament, if he had ever chanced to read Strauss's Life of Jesus Critically Examined. He had not. Things began to become clear to me. He didn't know that all his trusty arguments had been thoroughly refuted many decades before he was born.