Quotes About Doubt

I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much care one way or the other. My whole mind had swung back to Simon.

I could see he was nervous; at least, I thought I could, but then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.

Vicar: You ought to try [religion], one of these days, he said. I believe you'd like it. I said: but I have tried it, haven't I? I've been to church. It never seems to take.

Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums.

The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe. As belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary than ever that someone believe... Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.

That which we fear to touch is often the very fabric of our salvation.

And what do you remember, finally, when everyone has gone home and the streets are empty of devotion and hope, swept by river wind? Is the memory thin and bitter and does it shame you with its fundamental untruth--all nuance and wishful silhouette? Or does the power of transcendence linger, the sense of an event that violates natural forces, something holy that throbs on the hot horizon, the vision you crave because you need a sign to stand against your doubt?

I couldn't help suspecting I had manufactured the whole thing, my need for him, simply to avoid what I considered to be the alternatives. This is one of my very annoying traits. I can't sit back and let something grow of its own momentum and eventually reveal its truth or horror. I must probe it from the outset.

Choice is a subtle form of disease.

She wanted this only, to snuff out the pulse of the shaky faith she'd held for much of her life.

You don't believe in heaven? A nun?' 'If you don't, why should I?' 'If you did, maybe I would.' 'If I did, you would not have to.

Meredith was not so secure in her maturity that she did not suffer those periods of despondency and doubt which seemed to weave through the lives of self-reliant women.

I know it's thankless to be sensible in the face of someone's primitive distrust.

Tyle w nich by?o chrze?cija?stwa. I tak niewiele z Chrystusa.

Aren't you going too far?" "I'm from New York.

There is another kind of belief, a second force, insecure, untrusting, a faith that is spring-fed by the things we fear in the night.

This is why we are here. A tiny minority. To embody old things, old beliefs. The devil, the angels, heaven, hell. If we did not pretend to believe these things, the world would collapse." "Pretend?" "Of course pretend. Do you think we are stupid? Get out from here." "You don't believe in heaven? A nun?" "If you don't, why should I?" "If you did, maybe I would." "If I did, you would not have to.

look in the mirror and I don't know who I'm looking at," he said. "The face looking back at me doesn't seem to be mine. But then again why should it? Is the mirror a truly reflective surface? And is this the face that other people see? Or is it something or someone that I invent? Does the medication I'm taking release this second self?

The son of a bitch believes.

Quanti inizi ci vogliono prima che si comincino a vedere le menzogne del proprio entusiasmo?

Is it raining," I said, "or isn't it?

Combien de commencements avant de voir les mensonges dans son propre enthousiasme ?

you want to know whether i believe in ghosts of course i do not believe in them if you had known as many of them as i have you would not believe in them either

To desire to write poems that endure-we undertake such a goal certain of two things: that in all likelihood we will fail, and if we succeed we will never know it