“The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.”
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
“All great discoveries… are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.”
— Mark Helprin, book Winter's Tale
Source: Winter's Tale
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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Mark Helprin22
US author, journalist, commentator 1947Related quotes
Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) New Zealand writer
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 597
“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
p. 114 http://books.google.com/books?id=qCDpAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Fame+is+a+vapor+popularity+an+accident+the+only+earthly+certainty+is+oblivion%22&pg=PA114#v=onepage <br class="br">Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)
Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning
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.
“I've never made a discovery myself, unless by accident.”
Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher
Quoted in Sally Helgeson, "Every Day", Bookletter, Vol. 3, No. 8 (6 December 1976), p. 8
Context: I've never made a discovery myself, unless by accident. If you write glibly, you fool people. When I first met Asimov, I asked him if he was a professor at Boston University. He said no and … asked me where I got my Ph. D. I said I didn't have one and he looked startled. "You mean you're in the same racket I am," he said, "you just read books by the professors and rewrite them?" That's really what I do.
“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
As quoted in "Special Section: They Are Fated to Succeed" in TIME magazine (2 January 1978) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915860,00.html <br class="br">1970s
“To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.”
Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766) king of Poland
No. 61.
Maxims and Moral Sentences