Quotes about doubt
page 4

“Either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either view of the case you lie. If my offense is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses; you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt I should; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you indicted me in this court, which is the place not of instruction, but of punishment.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

26a
Plato, Apology

Hate, Lie, Law

“Many agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but this is a long story taking one into difficult metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should say, are only convenient symbol in discourse, not actually existing things.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

What is an Agnostic? (1953)
1950s

Soul

“Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible, that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book I, Chapter 6.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

“Her mouth is a honey-blossom,
No doubt, as the poet sings;
But within her lips, the petals,
Lurks a cruel bee that stings.”

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) author, critic and playwright from the United States

The Sarcastic Fair

Bee, Singing

“This is our moment. This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

God, People, Truth, Peace

“You know, my brothers, the nature of our business. The child you see before you, thanks to a talisman stolen from the powers of Earth, is able to take possession of the Blue Bird and thus to snatch from us the secret which we have kept since the origin of life… Now we know enough of Man to entertain no doubt as to the fate which he reserves for us once he is in possession of this secret. That is why it seems to me that any hesitation would be both foolish and criminal… It is a serious moment; the child must be done away with before it is too late…”

Maurice Maeterlinck The Blue Bird

The Oak
The Blue Bird (1908)

Life, Fate, Secret, Business

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel. … I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

As quoted in "Pope Francis: Donald Trump 'is not Christian'", by Rebecca Kaplan, CBS News (18 February 2016) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-trump-is-not-christian/ 2010s, 2016, Visit to Mexico (February 2016)

Way, Thinking, Personality

“Even 51 per cent of a nation can establish a totalitarian and dictatorial règime, suppress minorities, and still remain democratic; there is, as we have said, little doubt that the American Congress and the French Chambre have a power over their respective nations which would rouse the envy of a Louis XIV or a George III were they alive today”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pg 88
Liberty or Equality (40th anniversary edition) (1993)

Envy

“Yes, there will be setbacks and there will be frustrations, and there will be moments of doubt and moments of despair. The currents of history ebb and flow, but over time they flow toward freedom -- more people, in every corner of the Earth, standing up and reaching to claim those rights that are universal. And that’s why, in the end, our ideals are stronger. And that’s why, in the end, our ideals will win.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People, History, Freedom, Universe

“Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know! — the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

People, Pleasure, Dreams, Lovers

“But this letter is long, Sir, and it is time to conclude it.
I accuse Lt. Col. du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice — unwittingly, I would like to believe — and of defending this sorry deed, over the last three years, by all manner of ludricrous and evil machinations.
I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and covering it up, and making himself guilty of this crime against mankind and justice, as a political expedient and a way for the compromised General Staff to save face.
I accuse Gen. de Boisdeffre and Gen. Gonse of complicity in the same crime, the former, no doubt, out of religious prejudice, the latter perhaps out of that esprit de corps that has transformed the War Office into an unassailable holy ark.
I accuse Gen. de Pellieux and Major Ravary of conducting a villainous enquiry, by which I mean a monstrously biased one, as attested by the latter in a report that is an imperishable monument to naïve impudence.
I accuse the three handwriting experts, Messrs. Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting reports that were deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.
I accuse the War Office of using the press, particularly L’Eclair and L’Echo de Paris, to conduct an abominable campaign to mislead the general public and cover up their own wrongdoing.
Finally, I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of a document that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of covering up this illegality, on orders, thus committing the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

War, Secret, Justice, Law

“Immobile, certain, and permanent things, ideas, works and beliefs change, transform, and disintegrate…Movement is the only static, final, permanent, and certain thing. Static means transformation…Do not hold on to anything…Do not pinpoint anything!... We are fooling ourselves if we close our eyes and refuse to recognize the change... Decomposition begins only when we try to prevent it... We would so much like to own, think, or be something static, eternal, and permanent. However, our only eternal possession will be change... To attempt to hold fast an instant is doubtful... How beautiful it is to be transitory. How lovely it is not to have to live forever.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

as quoted in: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. ed. Stiles, Kristine and Selz, Peter (LA: University of California Press, 1996), p. 405; Cited in: John D. Powell. Preserving the unpreservable: A study of destruction art in the contemporary museum. University of Leicester, 2007. p. 30
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

Love, Beauty, Fools, Idea

“It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (20 February 1877), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 994.

People, Feeling, Question, Parting

“But I liken common languid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling down into ever worse distress towards final ruin;—all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of God's own hand, is the lightning. His word is the wise healing word which all can believe in. All blazes round him now, when he has once struck on it, into fire like his own.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

God, Time, Waiting, Dead

“This forcible abduction, so roughly carried out, was accomplished with the rapidity of lightning. I shivered all over. Whom had we to deal with? No doubt some new sort of pirates, who explored the sea in their own way. Hardly had the narrow panel closed upon me, when I was enveloped in darkness.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Cet enlèvement, si brutalement exécuté, s'était accompli avec la rapidité de l'éclair... Un rapide frisson me glaça l'épiderme. A qui avions-nous affaire ? Sans doute à quelques pirates d'une nouvelle espèce qui exploitaient la mer à leur façon.A peine l'étroit panneau fut-il refermé sur moi, qu'une obscurité profonde m'enveloppa.
Part I, ch. VIII: Mobilis in Mobili
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Way, Sea

“I don't think anybody doubts whether I've done some bad things. The question is: what, of course, and how and, maybe even most importantly, why?”

Ted Bundy (1946–1989) American serial killer

Interview with Bob Keppel days before his execution. audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QApVwP4AfY8

Question, Thinking

“God be thanked we were not bred up in that communion but are of a Church that is pious and sincere, and conformable in all its principles to the Scriptures. … the Church of England is, without all doubt, the only true Church.”

Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714) queen of England, queen of Scotland and queen of Ireland (1702–07); queen of Great Britain (1707–14)

Letter to her sister, Princess Mary (29 April 1686), from B. C. Brown (ed.), The Letters and Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne (1935), p. 16.

God, Sincerity

“Mankind’s problems can no longer be solved by national governments. What is needed is a World Government. This can best be achieved by strengthening the United Nations system. In some cases, this would mean changing the role of UN agencies from advice-giving to implementation. But some of the most important new institutions would be financial—a World Treasury and a World Central Bank. Just as each nation has a system of income redistribution, so there should be a corresponding ‘World Financial Policy’ to be implemented by the World Bank and the World Central Bank. Some of these proposals are, no doubt, far-fetched and beyond the horizon of today’s political possibilities. But the idealist of today often turns out to be the realists of tomorrow.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

Source: United Nations, Human Development Report 1994 http://books.google.com/books?id=pSa5Zrg5TnEC&pg=PA88, (1994), p. 88

World, Problem, Change

“In all these papers we see a love of honest work, an aversion to shams, a caution in the enunciation of conclusions, a distrust of rash generalizations and speculations based on uncertain premises. He was never anxious to add one more guess on doubtful matters in the hope of hitting the truth, or what might pass as such for a time, but was always ready to take infinite pains in the most careful testing of every theory. With these qualities was united a modesty which forbade the pushing of his own claims and desired no reputation except the unsought tribute of competent judges.”

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) physicist

From Gibbs's obituary for Hubert Anson Newton (1897), in the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/hubert-newton.pdf.

Love, Pain, Truth, Hope

“My father said "When in doubt, castle."”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

“There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

Universe, Time

“Neither of us knows what the public will think. There's no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at forty) to say something in my own voice; and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

26 July 1922
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Feeling, Thinking

“I think the first thing that led me toward philosophy (though at that time the word 'philosophy' was still unknown to me) occurred at the age of eleven. My childhood was mainly solitary as my only brother was seven years older than I was. No doubt as a result of much solitude I became rather solemn, with a great deal of time for thinking but not much knowledge for my thoughtfulness to exercise itself upon. I had, though I was not yet aware of it, the pleasure in demonstrations which is typical of the mathematical mind. After I grew up I found others who felt as I did on this matter. My friend G. H. Hardy, who was professor of pure mathematics, enjoyed this pleasure in a very high degree. He told me once that if he could find a proof that I was going to die in five minutes he would of course be sorry to lose me, but this sorrow would be quite outweighed by pleasure in the proof. I entirely sympathized with him and was not at all offended. Before I began the study of geometry somebody had told me that it proved things and this caused me to feel delight when my brother said he would teach it to me. Geometry in those days was still 'Euclid.' My brother began at the beginning with the definitions. These I accepted readily enough. But he came next to the axioms. 'These,' he said, 'can't be proved, but they have to be assumed before the rest can be proved.' At these words my hopes crumbled. I had thought it would be wonderful to find something that one could prove, and then it turned out that this could only be done by means of assumptions of which there was no proof. I looked at my brother with a sort of indignation and said: 'But why should I admit these things if they can't be proved?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

He replied, 'Well, if you won't, we can't go on.'
Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 19

Pleasure, Age, Hope, Feeling

“If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your most truly”, &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

“A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

Israel’s Iron Lady unfiltered: 17 Golda Meir quotes on her 117th birthday, Yadid, Judd, 2015-05-03, English, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.654218,

“It should not surprise Muslims if doubts were entertained about their loyalty. They could not ride on two horses.”

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) Indian freedom fighter who forged united India

Patel complaining about the Indian Muslims' silence over Kashmir in a speech in Lucknow in 1948, quoted in B.D. Graham: Hindu Nationalism and quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.349

Horse, Loyalty

“There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) Vol. 10, p. 268

“Denying the existence of God the Creator is like an artificial intelligent machine doubting the existence of human inventors.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

God, Intelligence

“I have not the slightest doubt that what passes for Hindu tolerance vis-a-vis Islam is no more than a combination of ignorance and cowardice.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Islam vis-a-vis Hindu temples. (1993)

“Kuhn as does Popper rejects the idea that science grows by accumulation of eternal truths.. But while according to Popper science is ‘revolution in permanence’, and criticism the heart of the scientiﬁc enterprise, according to Kuhn revolution is exceptional and, indeed, extra-scientiﬁc, and criticism is, in ‘normal’ times, anathema… The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology. It concerns our central intellectual values, and has implications not only for theoretical physics but also for the underdeveloped social sciences and even for moral and political philosophy. If even in science there is no other way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power. Thus Kuhn’s position would vindicate, no doubt, unintentionally, the basic political credo of contemporary religious maniacs”

Imre Lakatos (1921–1974) Hungarian mathematician, philosopher

‘student revolutionaries’ Imre Lakatos (1974) " From Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Lakatos-Falsification.pdf". as cited in: Thora Margareta Bertilsson (2009) Peirce's Theory of Inquiry and Beyond. p. 41.

Truth, Faith, Way, Idea

“[W]ho that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally. Cain also, when going forth from the presence of God, certainly appears to thoughtful men as likely to lead the reader to inquire what is the presence of God, and what is the meaning of going out from Him. …”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

On First Principles, Bk. 4, ch. 2, par 16
On First Principles

Life, Men, God, History

“I was often in the pit lane the noise was indescribable and I've no doubt that is why my hearing was affected.”

Murray Walker (1923) Motorsport commentator and journalist

The Evening Standard Staff (June 21, 2007) "Evening Standard: F1 made me deaf, says Walker", The Evening Standard.
Interviews

“I doubt not but one great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports, and trifle away all their time insipidly, is, because they have found their curiosity baulk'd, and their inquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and respect, and their questions answered, as they shuold, to their satisfaction; I doubt not but that they would have taken more pleasure in learning, and improving their knowledge, wherein there would still be newness and variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same play and play-things.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 118
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Children, Pleasure, Question, Knowledge

“One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Asolando, "Epilogue" (1889).

Dreams, Sleep, Fight

“For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life, Women, Men, People

“I don't like criticizing Milton Friedman not only because he is an old friend but because, outside of monetary theory, we are in complete agreement. Our general views on what is desired and what is not are almost identical until we get on to money. But if I told him what I said before, that I very much doubt whether monetary policy has ever done anything good, he would disagree. He personally is convinced that a good monetary policy is a foundation for everything.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Exclusive Interview with F.A. Hayek by James U. Blanchard III, in Cato Policy Report (May/June 1984)
1980s and later

Money, Personality

“I would not dare to say that there is a direct relation between mathematics and madness, but there is no doubt that great mathematicians suffer from maniacal characteristics, delirium and symptoms of schizophrenia.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Statement of 1996, as quoted in Dr. Riemann's Zeros (2003) by Karl Sabbagh, p. 88
1990s

Mathematics, Suffering, Madness

“I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Source: The Rebel (1951), pp. 8 - 10 as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd';(2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 44
Context: The absurd … is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence of Descartes' methodical doubt. Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion … Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition.

“It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to the Reverend G. W. Snyder (24 October 1798) http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=WasFi36.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=388&division=div1 1790s Context: !-- Revd Sir I have your favor of the 17th instant before me; and my only motive to trouble you with the receipt of this letter, is to explain, and correct a mistake which I perceive the hurry in which I am obliged, often, to write letters, have led you into. --> It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a seperation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned. <!-- My occupations are such, that but little leisure is allowed me to read News Papers, or Books of any kind; the reading of letters, and preparing answers, absorb much of my time. With respect — I remain Revd Sir Your Most Obedt Hble Ser. Go: Washington

“In modern quantum theory there can be no doubt that the elementary particles will finally also be mathematical forms”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: But the resemblance of the modern views to those of Plato and the Pythagoreans can be carried somewhat further. The elementary particles in Plato's Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms. "All things are numbers" is a sentence attributed to Pythagoras. The only mathematical forms available at that time were such geometric forms as the regular solids or the triangles which form their surface. In modern quantum theory there can be no doubt that the elementary particles will finally also be mathematical forms but of a much more complicated nature.

Mathematics

“Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.

Knowledge, Study

“There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
Context: There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

Life

“Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 1 : The Courage to Create, p. 21
Context: The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

“I am full of doubts … Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly — and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.”

Juliette Binoche (1964) French actress

As quoted in "How did I survive my childhood?" in The Telegraph (16 December 2005)

Way, Flying

“I have searched, I have indistinctly seen, I have doubted. Now, I hope.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: The eye is lost in all directions among the desolation where the multitude of men and women are hiding, as always and as everywhere.
That is what is. Who will say, "That is what must be!"
I have searched, I have indistinctly seen, I have doubted. Now, I hope.

Hope, Search

“There can be no doubt that children should be taught those useful things which are really necessary, but not all things, for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without vulgarizing them.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VIII 1337b.5 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrDWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=%22absorb+and+degrade+the+mind%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=c6NaUbatEYWp4AOWp4CoBA&ved=0CHYQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22absorb%20and%20degrade%20the%20mind%22&f=false, 1885 edition Politics Context: There can be no doubt that children should be taught those useful things which are really necessary, but not all things, for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without vulgarizing them. And any occupation, art, or science which makes the body, or soul, or mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of virtue is vulgar; wherefore we call those arts vulgar which tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind. There are also some liberal arts quite proper for a freeman to acquire, but only in a certain degree, and if he attend to them too closely, in order to attain perfection in them, the same evil effects will follow.

Children, Knowledge

“[B]ecause that which is finite is always bounded with reference to something… it is necessary that there should be no end… [N]umber also appears to be infinite, and mathematical magnitudes, and that which is beyond the heavens. And since that which is beyond is infinite, body also appears to be infinite, and it would seem that there are infinite worlds; for why is there rather void here than there? …If also there is a vacuum, and an infinite place, it is necessary that there should be an infinite body: for in things which have a perpetual subsistence, capacity differs nothing from being. The speculation of the infinite is, however, attended with doubt: for many impossibilities happen both to those who do not admit that it has a subsistence, and to those who do. …It is …especially the province of a natural philosopher to consider if there be a sensible infinite magnitude.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. V, p. 156.
Physics

World, Mathematics, Nature, Appearance

“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)
Context: Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.

Fear, Hope, Confidence, History

“For in the depth of every serious doubt and every despair of truth, the passion for truth is still at work. Don’t give in too quickly to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth. Don’t be seduced into a truth which is not really your truth, even if the seducer is your church, or your party, or your parental tradition. Go with Pilate, if you cannot go with Jesus; but go in seriousness with him!”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Chap. 8: "What Is Truth?"
The New Being (1955)
Context: Where else, besides in scholarly work, should we look for truth? There are many in our period, young and old, primitive and sophisticated, practical and scientific, who accept this answer without hesitation. For them scholarly truth is truth altogether. Poetry may give beauty, but it certainly does not give truth. Ethics may help us to a good life, but it cannot help us to truth. Religion may produce deep emotions, but it should not claim to have truth. Only science gives us truth. It gives us new insights into the way nature works, into the texture of human history, into the hidden things of the human mind. It gives a feeling of joy, inferior to no other joy. He who has experienced this transition from darkness, or dimness, to the sharp light of knowledge will always praise scientific truth and understanding and say with some great medieval theologians, that the principles through which we know our world are the eternal divine light in our souls. And yet, when we ask those who have finished their studies in our colleges and universities whether they have found there a truth which is relevant to their lives they will answer with hesitation. Some will say that they have lost what they had of relevant truth; others will say that they don’t care for such a truth because life goes on from day to day without it. Others will tell you of a person, a book, an event outside their studies which gave them the feeling of a truth that matters. But they all will agree that it is not the scholarly work which can give truth relevant for our life.
Where else, then, can we get it? "Nowhere," Pilate answers in his talk with Jesus. "What is truth?" he asks, expressing in these three words his own and his contemporaries’ despair of truth, expressing also the despair of truth in millions of our contemporaries, in schools and studios, in business and professions. In all of us, open or hidden, admitted or repressed, the despair of truth is a permanent threat. We are children of our period as Pilate was. Both are periods of disintegration, of a world-wide loss of values and meanings. Nobody can separate himself completely from this reality, and nobody should even try. Let me do something unusual from a Christian standpoint, namely, to express praise of Pilate—not the unjust judge, but the cynic and sceptic; and of all those amongst us in whom Pilate’s question is alive. For in the depth of every serious doubt and every despair of truth, the passion for truth is still at work. Don’t give in too quickly to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth. Don’t be seduced into a truth which is not really your truth, even if the seducer is your church, or your party, or your parental tradition. Go with Pilate, if you cannot go with Jesus; but go in seriousness with him!

Truth, Parent, Passion, Despair

“We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to-date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 7
Context: We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to-date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skepsis, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need.

Dreams

“But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book X : The Pope.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Context: What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living: — didst resist —
Anticipate the office that is mine —
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who, — again in my default, — was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right,
Approved less far in all docility
To all instruction, — how had such an one
Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?"

Life, God, Fools, Flowers

“Dare to think. Dare to doubt. Dare to question everything in spite of what the superstitious around you teach and preach.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa (2012)
Context: Most Africans cannot think freely or express their doubts openly because these religions have placed a huge price on freethinking and critical inquiry. Because these belief systems rely on paranormal claims themselves, Africans feel they cannot speak out against superstition as a whole, or they will be ostracized or even killed by religious zealots. Belief in demonic possession, faith healing, and the “restorative” power of holy water can have deadly consequences for believers and whole communities. Africans must reject superstitious indoctrination and dogmatization in public institutions. Africans need to adopt this cultural motto: Dare to think. Dare to doubt. Dare to question everything in spite of what the superstitious around you teach and preach. Africans must begin to think freely in order to ‘emancipate themselves from mental slavery’ and generate ideas that can ignite the flame of an African enlightenment.

Question, Thinking

“But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1958, 1989, 186 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013).
2010s
Context: Today's judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver's license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.

Men

“I am inclined to doubt that anything very resembling formal logic could be a good model for human reasoning.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Jokes and their Relation to the Cognitive Unconscious (1980)
Context: I am inclined to doubt that anything very resembling formal logic could be a good model for human reasoning. In particular, I doubt that any logic that prohibits self-reference can be adequate for psychology: no mind can have enough power — without the power to think about Thinking itself. Without Self-Reference it would seem immeasurably harder to achieve Self-Consciousness — which, so far as I can see, requires at least some capacity to reflect on what it does. If Russell shattered our hopes for making a completely reliable version of commonsense reasoning, still we can try to find the islands of "local consistency," in which naive reasoning remains correct.

“In a few minutes there was no doubt about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect upon the paper.”

Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) German physicist

The New Marvel in Photography (1896)
Context: I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line across the paper. … The effect was one which could only be produced, in ordinary parlance, by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube, because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known, even that of the electric arc. … I did not think; I investigated. I assumed that the effect must have come from the tube, since its character indicated that it could come from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few minutes there was no doubt about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded.

“If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will be because it is good.”

Jerry Goldsmith (1929–2004) film composer

Tony Thomas, Film Score: The Art & Craft of Movie Music (1991), pp. 285–295
Context: It's nice to think about the Golden Age of Hollywood, with the big studios and their fabulous music departments and the hundreds of films coming out every year. But it's gone. In some ways the composer today is more fortunate, provided he can find a good film, because he can attempt more than he could two decades ago. Twelve-tone music was unheard of during Max Steiner's heyday, as were any other avant-garde techniques. Finally, the future of film music rests with the composers themselves. lf they take their work seriously and turn out the best that is within them, then perhaps we can persuade not only the public, but the filmmakers that good music is valuable in films. The public is not stupid. If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will be because it is good.

Music

“Listen widely to remove your doubts and be careful when speaking about the rest and your mistakes will be few.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter II
Context: Listen widely to remove your doubts and be careful when speaking about the rest and your mistakes will be few. See much and get rid of what is dangerous and be careful in acting on the rest and your causes for regret will be few. Speaking without fault, acting without causing regret: 'upgrading' consists in this.

“False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth.”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Book IV, Ch. 7
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
Context: False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, et cetera.

Truth, Falseness

“The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Review of Herbert Giles translation of the works of Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsu) in The Speaker (8 February 1890)

Life, Family

“Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.”

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 12.
Context: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.

“Liars. Tricksters. It's been the same ever since Eve got the apple, and I doubt it will ever change. A real religion is truthful, you can come or go from it if you wish. And most importantly, there is no one leader claiming he is a god. Big, big difference.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

"Psych Sleuth : Margaret Singer has made history delving into the psychology of brainwashing", in The San Francisco Chronicle (26 May 2002) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/26/CM67534.DTL&ao=all 2002 Context: Just look up to the sky and talk to God yourself. You don't need an organization to do that. …They're all the same, really, these groups — they prey on the most lonely, vulnerable people they can find, cage you with your own mind through guilt and fear, cut you off from everyone you knew before, and when they're done doing that, they don't need armed guards to keep you. You're afraid that if you leave, your parents will die, you will die, your life will be ruined. Flim-flam men, pimps, sharpsters — that's what they are. Liars. Tricksters. It's been the same ever since Eve got the apple, and I doubt it will ever change. A real religion is truthful, you can come or go from it if you wish. And most importantly, there is no one leader claiming he is a god. Big, big difference.

God, Truth, Religion, Change

“I was not a good doctor, my studies had been too rapid, my hospital training too short, but there is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful doctor. What is the secret of success? To inspire confidence. What is confidence?… I do not know, I only know that it cannot be acquired by book reading, nor by the bedside of our patients. It is a magic gift granted by birth-right to one man and denied to another. The doctor who possesses this gift can almost raise the dead.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Secret, Books, Confidence, Birth

“Trust in your abilities and never doubt your potential to achieve. No matter how much negativity exists around you, you have the power to do wonderful, remarkable things.”

Ralph Smart

facebook

“It has often been said, that anything may be proved from the Bible, but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof of anything.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part II (1795)

Truth

“My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a belief in human dignity — that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law. Even in this political season, even as we properly debate what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe, let’s make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional. Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear; that we have always met challenges — whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks — by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people. So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

We Will Not Be Terrorized (December 2015), Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)

God, War, People, Fear

“For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The English Renaissance of Art https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wilde/oscar/english-renaissance-of-art/ (1882)

“A country that believes it has never done any wrong is a country that could do wrong at any time. But a country that believes it has only done wrong, or done such a terrible, unalleviated amount of wrong in the past, is likely to become a country that is inclined to doubt its ability to ever do any good in the future.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017)

Time, Past, Future, Country

“As we were very much pressed for time we were unable to see as much of the jail as we wanted to. We had an impression that we had been shown the brighter side of jail life. Nonetheless, two facts stood out. One was that we had actually seen desirable and radical improvements over the old system prevailing even now in most countries and the second and even more important fact was the mentality of the prison officials, and presumably the higher officials of the government also, in regard to jails. Actual conditions may or may not be good but the general principles laid down for jails are certainly far in advance of anything we had known elsewhere in practice. Anyone with a knowledge of prisons in India and of the barbarous way in which handcuffs, fetters and other punishments are used will appreciate the difference. The governor of the prison in Moscow who took us round was all the time laying stress on the human side of jail life, and how it was their endeavour to keep this in the front and not to make the prisoner feel in any way dehumanised or outcasted. I wish we in India would remember this wholesome principle and practise it in our daily lives even outside jail…. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that to be in a Russian prison is far more preferable than to be a worker in an Indian factory, whose lot is 10 to 11 hours work a day and then to live in a crowded and dark and airless tenement, hardly fit for an animal. The mere fact that there are some prisons like the ones we saw is in itself something for the Soviet Government to be proud of.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Life, Making love, Way, Feeling

“Whatever doubts I had about internal happenings in Russia, I was quite clear in my mind about her foreign policy. This had been consistently one of peace and, unlike England and France, of fulfilling international obligations and supporting the cause of democracy abroad. The Soviet Union stood as the one real effective bulwark against Fascism in Europe and Asia. Without the Soviet Union what could be the state of Europe today? Fascist reaction would triumph everywhere and democracy and freedom would become dreams of a past age.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

The Unity of India (1948)

Age, Peace, Dreams, Democracy

“However great the progress of mankind has been, and however far we have advanced in overcoming prejudices, I doubt if we have yet got to the point of view where an English constituency would elect a Blackman.”

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) Indian politician

About Dadabhai, Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

People, Lovers, Perfection

“Let me make it very clear to you, it is no doubt that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan. Without state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of every government judgement substitute language. Therefore, so far as the State language is concerned, Pakistan's state language shall be Urdu.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to a huge public rally in w:Dhaka, w:East Bengal (then the eastern wing of the w:Dominion of Pakistan and now the independent state of w:Bangladesh) (21 March 1948)

Making love, History

“Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love — I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case — and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you. — Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. — but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. — and evinces an Opinion which I have long entertaind, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign controul of our Actions — not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
You have drawn me my dear Madam, or rather have I drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact — misconstrue not my meaning — ’tis obvious — doubt it not, nor expose it, — the World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to — you when I want to conceal it — One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them. Letter to https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0013#GEWN-02-06-02-0013-fn-0002 Mrs. George William Fairfax (Sally Cary Fairfax) (12 September 1758) 1750s

Love, World, Making love, Beauty

“We are obviously heading for revolution—something I have never once doubted since 1850. The first act will include a by no means gratifying rehash of the stupidities of '48-'49. However, that's how world history runs its course, and one has to take it as one finds it.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (28 December 1862), quoted in The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 41. Letters 1860–64 (2010), p. 437

Stupidity, World, History

“When beset with doubt in troubled times, and those about you will understand if you come unglued, stay the ground, and face the challenge. For when you stand alone to confront life's highest mountains, the next shall be easier to climb.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1972

Life, Mountain, Understanding, Time

“It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself. What proves beyond doubt the radicalism of German theory, and thus its practical energy, is that it begins from the resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man. It ends, therefore, with the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Men, Religion, Dogs

“It seems that the disenchantment of fate (though underestimated) was a milestone on the path of human development, the day we doubted ways of fate could only be compared to a Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. The first thought approach of modernity is the contradiction of destiny, with its sense of divine power ruling from the outer planes all phenomena and events happening in real world.”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Source: We'll go asleep, poems and ballads, "An innocent twist of fate" pg. 46

Fate, World, Way, Sense

“Let nobody doubt that religions are the cradles of despotism. The first of all despots was a priest; the first king and the first emperor of Rome, Numa and Augustus, both allied themselves with the priesthood; Constantine and Clovis were abbots rather than sovereigns; Heliopolis was the priest of the sun. In all times, in all centuries, despotism and religion have been so thoroughly interconnected that, as is easily demonstrated, in destroying one you undermine the other, for the profound reason that each will help the other to gain power.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Religion, Time, Sun, Help

“The final encounter with God, or an encounter with God that would take you beyond doubt, wouldn't have the character of a metaphysical proof.”

David Bentley Hart (1965) American theologian

David Bentley Hart - Can metaphysics discern God?
16 December 2017
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw_epidqEgI
YouTube

God

“I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

As quoted in Words from the Wise : Over 6,000 of the Smartest Things Ever Said (2007) by Rosemarie Jarski, p. 312. From The Praise of Folly.

People

“Start to think it could be fizzling out
Kinda shocked because I never really had any doubts
Look into your eyes, imagine life without ya
And the love kick starts again”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Kickstarts" (song) ("Kickstarts", Official video on YouTube)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yGcKlYAiw (+ "Kickstarts", a lyrics version on YouTube)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRi1Zczn6Q4 Studio albums, Won't Go Quietly (2010)

Love, Life, Imagination, Thinking

“Death on the cross raised many doubts in the people. Having some bruises on the hands and feet. But it would've been a different story if the methods of hanging was involved. Simply, because it is the most peaceful death that doesn't involve the shedding of the blood.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Death, People, Peace

“It would be so foolish of you to form a team that has many people who doubt, rather than having true believers in your cause.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People

“When you start to doubt, it means that the solution is no longer far from you. Just don't overthink it.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Today, I seem to have developed a new, clear and sharper vision of my life and it's
events that were never evident to me pendant the moments that I was experiencing them as they occurred in my microcosmic world, where I was, "The Bubble Boy".
I felt that I had to clear myself of toxins which were spewed onto my entire existence through an insidious series of betrayals.
I have changed and evolved so much in my lifetime(s) and continue to everyday…every moment.
I have worked on MYSELF.
I have healed myself.
I have gotten to know who I am and know very clearly and sans doubt what a prodigious, rare and special catch I am for the correct person who will actually see and KNOW how fortunate they are to be with Me!
And I they…….. of course.
I am not nor never have I been an ordinary person in any shape or form……. I am black and white………. I possess a vast array of remarkable, innate and perfectly educated qualities which span from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I have lived the most extraordinary, privileged and charmed life. However I have experienced intense loss, pain and sorrow as well…most people are fortunate enough not to ever even be capable of fathoming such extremes."”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Pain, People, World

“You've got to say what you mean and mean what you say… Doubt in your voice is an open door people will shove right through.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

People

“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 39 Catholic Spirit http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/39/ from the 1872 edition of Wesley's Complete Works - Thomas Jackson, editor Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

Love, God, Children, Thinking

“Have you ever heard the phrase, it is better to keep your mouth closed and have people wonder if you are stupid than open it and remove all doubt? (Hakim al Harbi)”

Vince Flynn book Pursuit of Honor

Source: Pursuit of Honor

People, Stupidity, Funny

“If I had not been a Shadowhunter, I would have had a future on the stage. I have no doubt I would have been greeted with acclaim.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Variant: I am dramatic," said Will. "If i had not been a Shadowhunter, i would have had a future on the stage.
Source: Clockwork Princess

Future

“And what about the piranhas?”
“I doubt the fishies’ll snack on anything critical.” He leaned in to murmur at her ear, “They only go for small prey.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

“Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

People, Fear, Feeling, Success

“Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden (1854)

Animals, Parting

“We wish we could show you the world as it sleeps. Then you'd never have any doubt about how similar, how trusting, how astounding and vulnerable we all are.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

World, Sleep

“She had reason to doubt him; he was real good at planning but real bad at doing.”

Junot Díaz book Drown

Source: Drown

“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Hell, Despair

“Despicable creatures, vultures: without a doubt the most disgusting birds ever. I suppose they served their purpose, but did they have to be so greasy and ugly? Couldn't we have cute fuzzy rabbits that cleaned up roadkill instead?”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Bird

“Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.”

Orson Scott Card Sarah

Source: Sarah

Faith

“How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!”

Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake….”

Alexander Trocchi (1925–1984) Scottish writer

“Hello, companion," said Magnus.

The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.

"I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship," said Magnus.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Magnus Bane to a monkey in 1791, p. 12.
Source: The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)
Context: He paused and admired the bromeliads, huge iridescent flower-like bowls made out of petals, shimmering with color and water. There were frogs inside the jewel-bright recesses of the flowers.
Then he looked up into the round brown eyes of a monkey.
'Hello, companion,' said Magnus.
The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.
'I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship,' said Magnus.

Friendship, Beauty

Quotes about doubt page 4

Quotes about doubt
page 4