
“It's not doubt that drives people crazy, it's certainty that does.”
Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)
From documentary movie "Going Clear," directed by Alex Gibney
“It's not doubt that drives people crazy, it's certainty that does.”
Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)
On Twitter after the 2017 Barcelona attack. (17 August 2017) http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450574/donald-trump-tweet-fake-history-libel-war-crime. Referring to an allegedly false story about John J. Pershing which has circulated on the Internet.
2010s, 2017, August
It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)
Book I, v, 8
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Source: The Advancement Of Learning
Context: The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
"Ashley Tisdale talks about her debut album and her life" http://www.upstartmag.co.nz/Ashley_Tisdale_Interview_81.aspx. Upstar Magazine. Retrieved on November 21, 2008.
On her debut album Headstrong. (2007)
2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)
On families not always being a bedrock of support in “Migrant State of Mind: A Q&A With Novelist Laila Lalami” https://www.thenation.com/article/laila-lalami-interview-the-other-americans/ in The Nation (2019 Apr 23)
“The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.”
“We may eliminate death someday but I doubt if we’ll ever eliminate taxes.”
Source: I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 24, p. 406