Quotes About Doubt

The religious form of conventional wisdom with its excessive certitude blinds us to the mystery and wonder of life.

The notion that there was one "right" way of seeing things disappeared. This was enormously liberating, even if a bit alarming. But my curiosity was greater than my fear.

The possibility that Jesus didn't think he was the messiah has often seemed to threaten the truth of Christianity itself. Could Jesus be the messiah if he didn't think he was?

Marcus J. Borg

Christianity in the modern period became preoccupied with the dynamic of believing or not believing. For many people, believing "iffy" claims to be true became the central meaning of Christian faith. It is an odd notion—as if what God most wants from us is believing highly problematic statements to be factually true. And if one can't believe them, then one doesn't have faith and isn't a Christian

We should not be too confident in our belief of anything. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations I.32)

Utinam tam facile vera invenire possim quam falsa convincere.

En política sólo puedes estar seguro de una cosa, de que jamás puedes estar seguro de nada

If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?

Faith is only a word, embroidered.

Once a story you've regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.

Being able to read and write did not provide answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.

She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting.

Though as he'd say, what is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?

There is a Do this or Do that with God, but not any Because.

Their youngness is terrifying. How could I have put myself into the hands of such inexperience?

It was a question now, rather than a statement; a question with no answer.

It must have been then that I began to lose faith in reasonable argument as the sole measure of truth.

I feared I might lose my faith. If you've never had a faith, you will not understand what that means. You feel as if your best friend is dying, that everything that defined you is being burned away; that you'll be left all alone.

what is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?

When in doubt, when flat on your back, you can look at the ceiling. Who knows what you may see, up there? Funeral wreaths and angels, constellations of dust, stellar or otherwise, the puzzles left by spiders. There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind.

I was nervous. How was I to know he loved me? It might be just an affair. Why did we ever say just? Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.

I really don't know what men used to say. I had only their words for it.

Now I wanted to be acknowledged, but I feared it.