Quotes About Doubt

Virtuous behavior by a believer is no proof at all of - indeed is not even an argument for - the truth of his belief.

But we do believe in religion—at least for other people. It is a means of marketing hope, and of instilling ethical precepts on the cheap.

Christopher Hitchens

We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we persist in self-centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time. However, it is just as certain that we shall continue to cast a skeptical and ironic and even witty eye on what we have ourselves invented. If religion is innate in us, then so is our doubt of it and our contempt for our own weakness.

people can be better off believing in something than in nothing, however untrue that something may be.

The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over-confident, and vain.

If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.

Faith of that sort—the sort that can stand up at least for a while in a confrontation with reason—is now plainly impossible.

Actually, the leap of faith - to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it - is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a leap that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias.

That is not blind faith but just the opposite: faith continually tested, corrected and provisionally defended by the testimony of our senses and our common sense.

And do you think that unto such as you A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew God gave a secret, and denied it me? Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too! —THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM (RICHARD LE GALLIENNE TRANSLATION)

Which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god?

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens

To believe in a god is in one way to express a willingness to believe in anything. Whereas to reject the belief is by no means to profess belief in nothing.

Karl Marx was rightest of all when he recommended continual doubt and self-criticism. Membership in the skeptical faction or tendency is not at all a soft option. The defense of science and reason is the great imperative of our time.

Christopher Hitchens

croire en un dieu est une façon d'exprimer une disposition à croire en n'importe quoi. Tandis que rejeter la croyance n'est d'aucune manière professer que l'on ne croit en rien.

There can be no doubt that the cult of death and the insistence upon portents of the end proceed from surreptitious desire to see it happen, and to put an end to the anxiety and doubt that always threaten the hold of faith.

Tertullian put it, either disarmingly or annoyingly according to your taste. I believe it because it is absurd. It is impossible to quarrel seriously with such a view. If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.

No. Even now I can't altogether believe that any of this really happened...

Here, in their midst, George feels a sort of vertigo. Oh God, what will become of them all? What chance have they? Ought I to yell out to them, right now, here, that it's hopeless?

I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.

Faustus: «Come, I think hell's a fable». Mephistopheles: «Ay, think so still, until experience change thy mind».