Quotes About Doubt

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.

I recognize that I may be wrong. This makes me insecure. My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors. I do this on two levels. On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy.

You know what's interesting about Washington It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.

Those who still profess the rule of hope, teach optimism only by force of habit, without believing in what they say.

In the end she'd decided it wasn't God she questioned so much as His organized believers.

It may look like a boat with a hole, but it may be a hole with a boat.

If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished with a troop of kakapo to amuse me in the evening instead of television.

I never really believed in Satan, or that there was pure evil in the world, until I came here.

I have never been a very brave man," Uncle Moses said. "Nor I," Zalmann added. Eva smiled at them. "You are brave enough.

They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.

There's never a reason to trust someone. If there's a reason, then it's not trust.

How did they know that I was the one who saved them?" "They don't. You're the third knight they've celebrated over since it happened.

If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt.

I cannot say that I have faith anymore. Hope, perhaps. We have agreed that it will do for now.

Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what actors do.

All decisions are made on insufficient evidence.

Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise.

Ignorance never settles a question.

I never believe facts; Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.

There are innumerable instances suggesting that modern intellectuals do not believe themselves, that they don't really believe what they say, that they say certain things only in order to assure themselves that they possess opinions and ideas that are different from those that are entertained by the common herd of men.

Oh, don't tell me of facts - I never believe in facts; you know Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.