Thursday 31 May 2012

Quote Worthy


When chickens quit quarrelling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them. I wonder if it might not be the same with the human race. - Don Marquis  

The most centred and happy among us are those who embrace life, love, people, food, music, art – even the challenges of frustrations, aging and death – with a passion. - Leo Buscaglia   

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. - Alexander Graham Bell  

There are three things necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do. - St Thomas  

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. - Akhnaton  

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Disgrace - Quotes

Act with propriety, and disgrace will keep far from you. - Chung Yew

Disgrace does not consist in the punishment, but in the crime. - Vittorio Alfieri

It is better to die than preserve life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life only pains a moment, but disgrace every day of one's life. - Chanaka

No one can disgrace us but ourselves. - American Proverb

The disgrace of the city is the fault of the citizens. - American Proverb

There are two ways of doing battle against Disgrace. You may live it down; or you may run away from it and hide. The first method is heart-breaking, but sure. The second cannot be relied upon because of the uncomfortable way Disgrace has of turning up at your heels. - Edna Ferber

There is but a step between a proud man's glory and his disgrace. - Publilius Syrus

The Cosmos


The Cosmos is a body of chi. Chi has the properties of yin and yang. When chi is spread out, it permeates all things; when it coalesces it becomes nebulous. When this settles into form it becomes matter. When it disintegrates it returns to its original state. - Zhang Dai

The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations - each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony. - Ruth Bernhard

We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars. - Alan Chadwick

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Food For Thought


Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy. - Mahatma Gandhi

The effects of our actions may be postponed but they are never lost. There is an inevitable reward for good deeds and an inescapable punishment for bad. Meditate upon this truth, and seek always to earn good wages from Destiny. - Wu Ming Fu

There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance. - Arthur Helps

Divorce - Quotes

Divorce is an embarrassing public admission of defeat. - Tracy Letts

Divorce is like cutting off a gangrened arm to save the rest of the body. - David Knox & Caroline Schacht

Divorce is one of the most stressful life events anyone goes through. Only the loss of a loved one and moving are even in its class, difficulty-wise – and divorcing generally involves both of those as well. Even when you are the one initiating the divorce, the enormous changes that result are bound to throw you off and leave you feeling, at the very least, a bit lost. - Emily Doskow

Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship. - Gary Chapman

Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce. - Jennifer Weiner

Divorce lawyers stoke anger and fear in their clients, knowing that as long as the conflicts remain unresolved the revenue stream will keep flowing. - Craig Ferguson

For a couple with young children, divorce seldom comes as a “solution” to stress, only as a way to end one form of pain and accept another. - Fred Rogers

Going through a divorce is like having every aspect of your life played back. Anything you have mishandled or regretted is talked about by everyone as they try to figure out who was right and who the innocent party really is. The comfort you once experienced is gone completely. There are many choices for new comfort, but most of them have no value except introducing new addictions or pounds of fat or guilt. - Kandace Cooper

Grown-ups are worried that they're going to ruin their children's lives, but divorce is just a life experience and you learn from it. - Evan Stern

In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage. - Robert Woodruff Anderson

I've been through divorce and will always be a "divorced kid".... For me, my parent's divorce was hard at first, but I overcame my sadness and my fears about it. I know that my parents are happier apart. And I'm happy with the way things are, too.... Divorce can sometimes be for the better. You may end up with happier parents, and you will definitely learn a lot about yourself! And that's the whole point of growing up. So if you think about it, there are reasons to be happy about this experience, if you can learn and grow from it. - Zoe Stern

Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again. - Edward Hoagland

No matter how you slice it, divorce is expensive and time-consuming. The most important variable is how well you and your spouse are able to put aside your anger and grief and cooperate on the big issues of money and children. The better you are at working together to make decisions for your changing family structure, the better for your bank account and for your chances of emerging from the divorce with a decent relationship with your ex. - Emily Doskow

The best advice I have for other parents going through a divorce is that the kids need to know that both of their parents are good people. It’s easy to set the example of kindness and love and respect when the things are good. So if you can do that when things are hard, and wholeheartedly support their relationship with the other parent – you're showing them a certain kind of resiliency. - Bradly Whitford

The divorced person is like a man with a black patch over one eye: He looks rather dashing but the fact is that he has been through a maiming experience. - Jo Coudert

The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. - G. K. Chesterton

Monday 28 May 2012

Betty


There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses. 


One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God without with no actual address. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:
Dear God,
I am an 63 year old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next week is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope.
Can you please help me?
Sincerely,
Betty
The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. They all dug into their wallets and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Betty and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends.
Christmas came and went. A few days later, another letter came from the same old lady to God. All the  workers gathered around while the letter was opened.
It read:
Dear God,
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful Gift.
By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.
Sincerely,
Betty

Do - Quotes

A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not. - Johann Gottlieb Fichte

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Do anything, but let it produce joy. - Walt Whitman

Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work. - William Arthur Ward

Do or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. - Oprah Winfrey

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do. - Oprah Winfrey

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. - William Blake

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. - Maya Angelou

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. - Leonardo da Vinci

If you can dream it, you can do it. - Walt Disney

If you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone. - Richard Yates

It's easy to know what the right thing to do is, but it's not always easy to actually do it. - Phil Alden

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness. - George Bernard Shaw
Let us do or die. - John Fletcher

There is always going to be someone who does things the easy way, but that should not stop you from doing things the right way. - Unknown

What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things. - Margaret Meade

What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us. - Henry van Dyke

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. - Confucius

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can. - Jimmy Carter

Sunday 27 May 2012

Life


Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if, at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle, he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things. - William Golding 

Except for some rather vague, broad and nebulous guidelines, none of us is ever taught how to live. We are not told the value of life nor what it means to be fully alive. We have no idea of the wonders we can take from life or of the responsibility we have to give it something in return. We are born into our world, educated to adjust to it according to the dominant and accepted mores and then pretty much left to sink or swim. -  Leo Buscaglia

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. -  Henry Miller

Doctors - Quotes

A great doctor kills more people than a great general. - G. W. Leibniz

A wealthy doctor who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian, who kills a rich man to supply his necessities. - Joseph Addison

Any physician who advertises a positive cure for any disease, who issues nostrum testimonials, who sells his services to a secret remedy, or who diagnoses and treats by mail patients he has never seen, is a quack. - Samuel Hopkins Adams

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing. - Voltaire

Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. - Norman Cousins

For each illness that doctors cure with medicine, they provoke ten in healthy people by inoculating them with the virus that is a thousand times more powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill. - Marcel Proust

Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create. - Voltaire

You can't judge the ability of a doctor by the amount of praise the undertakers give him. - Evan Esar

Friday 25 May 2012

Dogs - Quotes

[Dogs] are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. - Emily Dickinson

A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion. - Washington Irving

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them … A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. - Mary Oliver

A dog does not flee from a bone. - Irish Proverb

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. - Josh Billings

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. - Arthur Conan Doyle

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. - Robert Benchley

A dog that will fetch a bone, will carry a bone. - R. Forby 

A dog wags its tail with its heart. - Unknown

A dog with a bone knows no friend. - Dutch Proverb

A hungry dog will eat dirty puddings. - Latin Proverb

A living dog is better than a dead lion. - Unknown

A man may smile and bid you hail, yet wish you to the devil; But when a good dog wags his tail, you know he’s on the level. - Unknown

A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty. - John Grogan

An old dog does not bark in vain. - Spanish Proverb

An old dog will learn no tricks. - Italian Proverb

Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog. - Franklin P. Jones

As the hound, so the pup. - Irish Proverb

Barking dogs seldom bite. - Unknown

Beware of the dog that does not bark. - Portuguese Proverb

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. - Emily Dickinson

Dogs are easy. If their tails are up and their eyes are soft, you're in. - Paula McLain

Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it's "only" a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However, when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times, those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day – we're just so used to them that we pay no attention. - Jonathan Carroll

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. - Roger Caras

Dogs are like a gift, a grace undeserved, that releases us into an economy of abundance, where the economic laws of scarcity and therefore competition no longer apply and where instead we feel ourselves the beneficiaries of a wealth that is actualized only as we give it away, and in giving we see something we could not see before. - Stephen H. Webb

Dogs are one of the luxuries of civilization: in uncivilized life they are perhaps more one of the necessities. - H. W. Shaw 

Dogs are obsessed with being happy. -  James Thurber

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring – it was peace. - Milan Kundera

Dogs are voiceless ... a critical part of having dogs is emotional responsibility: learning how to understand them and, when necessary, to speak and act on their behalf. - Jon Katz

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more. - Agatha Christie

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen. - Orhan Pamuk

Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, and filling an emptiness we didn’t ever know we had. - Thom Jones

Dogs have this uncanny ability to bring out the funny side in all of us. - Kim Levin

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate. -Sigmund Freud

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. - Ann Landers

Dumb dogs are dangerous. - Unknown

Every dog is a lion at home. - Italian Proverb

Every dog must have his day. - Jonathan Swift

Happiness is a warm puppy. - Charles M. Schulz

He is very imprudent, a dog; he never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or the wrong, never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are his pal. That is enough for him. - Jerome Klapka Jerome

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. - Alexander Pope

Hounds follow those who feed them. - Otto von Bismarck

I love a good dog – a good house dog that guards the premises and has an honest bark and loves my children. I love him because he loves me. - Bill Arp

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven – and very, very few persons. - James Thurber

If our dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise. - Unknown

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Mark Twain

It's a dangerous dog that doesn’t bark. - Kobo Abe

Let sleeping dogs lie. - English Proverb

My Goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. - Unknown

No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich. - Louis Sabin

One dog barks at something, and a hundred bark at him. - Chinese Proverb

One need only look at the open, friendly face of any dog to find evidence of their affable nature; dogs are fundamentally social creatures. They see the big picture. They appreciate togetherness. They care about others. - Bradley Trevor Greive & Rachael Hale

One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you’re feeling blue is that he doesn’t try to find out why. - Unknown

One reason most dogs are much happier than most people is that dogs aren't affected by external circumstances the way we are. I notice that even when it's pouring rain outside, my dogs, Blue and Celeste, are still excited to go for a walk. As soon as I open the front door to look outside, they're beside me in a flash, standing expectantly, ready for an adventure. I usually wait for a break in the downpour, and then we all dash out together. The fact that the ground is soggy and there are mud puddles dotting the landscape means nothing to the dogs. While I'm gingerly picking my way around the wet spots, the dogs are joyfully splashing right through them. They aren't afraid to get their paws dirty. - Matt Weinstein & Luke Barber

Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods. - Christopher Hitchens

Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer. - Dean Koontz

Properly trained, a Man can be Dog’s best friend. - Corey Ford

Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job. - Franklin P. Jones

Some men are kinder to the occupants of their kennels than to their families; they will treat wife and children like dogs, but not dogs themselves so. - G. D. Prentice

Some scientists believe dogs are like immature wolves. They think that genetic changes occurred that stopped their mental and physical maturation. This explains why dogs throughout their lives act like wolf youngsters, remaining trusting and playful. - D. Caroline Coile

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person. - Andy Rooney

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals. - James Thurber

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's. - Mark Twain

The dog is the only animal that leaves his own species to take up his abode with man. - Oliver Goldsmith

The dog that trots about finds a bone. - Golda Meir

The dog’s agenda is simple, fathomable, overt: I want. I want to go out, come in, eat something, lie here, play with that, kiss you. There are no ulterior motives with a dog, no mind games, no second-guessing, no complicated negotiations or bargains, and no guilt trips or grudges if a request is denied. If you’ve spent a lifetime navigating the landscape of human relationships, characterized as it can be by covetness and ambivalence and indirection, this can be an enormous relief. - Caroline Knapp

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. - Samuel Butler

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend. - Lord Bryon

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue. - Unknown

The world would be a nicer place if everyone had the ability to love as unconditionally as a dog. - M.K. Clinton

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. - Ben Williams

To forget or deny that dogs are animals is to fundamentally misunderstand them, and our relationships. It puts them in an unresolvable bind. We love them more and more, and increasingly bring them into our homes and emotional lives. Yet almost all their natural behaviours – running free, hunting prey, having sex, rolling in gross stuff, chewing whatever they come across, peeing wherever they feel like it – are either illegal or repellent. Dogs are the most loved and abused of creatures. Nearly seventy million of them are under the care of humans, but another ten million languish in shelters, most doomed. - Jon Katz

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare, and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made. - M. Facklam

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, what counts is the size of the fight in the dog. - Mark Twain

When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news. - Charles Anderson Dana

Whoever said you can't buy Happiness forgot little puppies. - Gene Hill

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!' - Dave Barry

Thursday 24 May 2012

Quote Worthy


At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. - Ralph Waldo Emerson  

If you wish to make a man your enemy, tell him simply, 'You are wrong.' This method works every time. - Henry C. Link  

In the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought. - Gilbert Chesterton  

It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now. - Hugh Prather   

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. - Michel De Montaigne   
 
Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one. -  William Penn  

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. - Saint Jerome  

Preventives of evil are far better than remedies; cheaper and easier of application, and surer in result. - Tryon Edwards  

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Ego


The person, the individual, the ego, is but an object of perception, it is only habit or error that we identify ourselves with our perceptions and this is itself the cause of all our suffering. - Jean Klein

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up. - Deepak Chopra

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Food For Thought


If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. - Dorothy Canfield Fisher 

Its not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely. - Leo Buscaglia

To act wisely when the time for action comes, to wait patiently when it is time for repose, put man in accord with the tides. Ignorance of this law results in periods of unreasoning enthusiasm on the one hand, and depression on the other. - Helena Petrova Blavatsky

Monday 21 May 2012

Autopsy


              Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
              A: No.
              Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
              A: No.
              Q: Did you check for breathing?
              A: No.
              Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
              A: No.
              Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
              A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
              Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
              A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

Sunday 20 May 2012

Life


I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent. As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret. - Tony Robbins

Three rules of life:
(1) Out of clutter, find simplicity;
(2) From discord, find harmony;
(3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein

Three facts in life:
1. If you do not go after what you want, you’ll never have it.
2. If you do not ask, the answer will always be no.
3. If you don not step forward, you’ll always be in the same place.

Friday 18 May 2012

Doubts - Quotes

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. - Arthur Golden 

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. - Ambrose Bierce

By doubting, we come at the truth. - Cicero

Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, Doubt (called "the father of inventions" by Galileo), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins? - Christian Nestell Bovee

Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step. - James Allen

Doubt can only be removed by action. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door. - Benjamin Jowett

Doubt is a profound and effective spiritual motivator. Without doubt, no truism is transcended, no new knowledge found, no expansion of the imagination possible. Doubt is unsettling to the ego, and those who are drawn to ideologies that promise the dispelling of doubt by proffering certainties will never grow. In seeking certainty, they are courting the death of the soul, whose nature is forever churning possibility, forever seeking the larger, forever riding the melting edge of certainty's glacier. - James Hollis

Doubt is a sentinel on the watch-tower of the brain, charged with the duty of sounding an alarm, whenever its enemies – superstition, falsehood, ignorance and unreason – attempt to invade the citadel of truth. - Henry M. Taber

Doubt is an incentive to truth, and patient inquiry leadeth the way. - Hosea Ballou

Doubt is excellent when it is a question of securing what we already possess, but it can be fatal if it impedes us in pursuit of what we seek. - Carlos Fuentes

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. - Voltaire

Doubt is not a thing "shot into the soul" from without like "a loaded shell shot into a fortress." It springs up in the soul itself; and the more you attempt to "fling it away" without satisfying it, the deeper and more ineradicable it grows. - A Layman

Doubt is not the opposite of confidence. Doubt can actually be a virtue; it is a form of self-reflection that anyone in a leadership position should exercise now and again. Having doubts about a course of action is a manifestation of a creative and lively mind, one that is engaged in the pursuit of a goal. The ability to question that pursuit means that you are open to change and circumstance. You may change or you may not, but at least you are open to the real world and the twists and turns it may toss you. - John Baldoni

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich

Doubt is so much the fashion, and, in truth, so much the necessity of our time, that there is danger that it come to be looked upon as in itself a good. It is good to doubt the false, if the doubt be pursued to the overthrow of the false; it is good to doubt the true that has come to us by tradition or education alone, if the doubt be pursued to the establishment of the true; otherwise there is no good in doubt at all. That feeble life that truth, traditionally held, can give to the nature is better than the bloodlessness of mere doubt. Strong minds doubt, but doubt is no proof of strength; noble minds doubt – in these days, all the noblest must pass through doubt – but doubt is no proof of nobility. The strength and the nobility are shown when the doubts are grappled with till they yield up some hidden treasure of truth. Then the truth is but the second and crowning reward; the first reward began when the struggle began, being found in the growth of that intellectual and moral strength which was at once the parent and the offspring of the contest. - C. W. Moulton

Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom. - George Iles

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. Doubt is the precursor of inquiry; inquiry leads to Evidence; Evidence is the foundation of Knowledge; and Knowledge is the parent of Liberty and Power. Concerning sceptics, a philosophical writer once remarked, "That they are men who pick holes in the fabric of Knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly mended, the whole of the building becomes more firm and solid than it was before." - Andrew Jackson

Doubt is the difficult mind state of perplexity. It's like being at a crossroads and now knowing which way to go. We go back and forth between alternatives and are then brought to a standstill by bewilderment and indecision. When doubt is overpowering, we can't move. It doesn't even allow us the opportunity to take a wrong turn and learn from our mistakes. - Joseph Goldstein

Note the difference between a scientist and an athlete. Doubt is a scientist's stock in trade. Progress is made by focusing on the evidence that refutes a theory and by improving the theory accordingly. Skepticism is the rocket fuel of scientific advance. But doubt, to an athlete, is poison. Progress is made by ignoring the evidence; it is about creating a mind-set that is immune to doubt and uncertainty. - Matthew Syed

Doubt is the father of invention. - Galileo Galilei

Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom. - George Iles

Doubt is the herald of progress; the genius of reason; the pathway to truth; the advance guard in the contest with intellectual darkness. - Henry M. Taber

Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom; therefore, when we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained a something that will stay by us, and which will serve us again. But, if to avoid the trouble of the search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought but borrowed it. - Charles Caleb Colton

Doubt is the whetstone of understanding. - John dos Passos

Doubt is your intellectual conscience pleading with you to be honest with yourself. - Peter Boghossian

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous. - G. C. Lichtenberg

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself. - Christian Bovee

Doubt, genuine doubt, is a good thing; not as an end, mark you, for so it is deadly, but as a means to an end. - David James Burrell

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth. - Ambrose Bierce

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone. - Thomas Carlyle

Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own. - Johann Von Goethe

He is without faith who is afraid of doubters. - J. Donald Johnston

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise! - Homer

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. - Richard P. Feynman

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. - Wilson Mizner 

If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done. - John Lubbock

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. - Rene Descartes

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell

In the ages of ignorance, it was a crime to doubt; now it is the sign of intelligence. - Andrew Jackson Davis

It is by doubting that we come to investigate, and by investigating that we recognize the truth - Peter Abelard

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. - Clarence Darrow

Kill the snake of doubt in your soul, crush the worms of fear in your heart and mountains will move out of your way. - Unknown

Men become civilised, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. - H. L. Mencken

Modest doubt is call’d the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare

Most men appear wiser in their doubts than in their belief. - Norman MacDonald

Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. - Shakespeare

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do. - Lewis Cass

The best way is to forget doubts and set about the task in hand. - Robert Silliman Hillyer

The depth of a man's questioning is more important than his answers. - Andre Malraux

The great experimental principle, then, is doubt, that philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in physiology and medicine are derived. - Claude Bernard

The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice. - Saul Alinsky

The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. - Charles Sanders Peirce

The minute you begin to have doubts, the floor under your feet starts to shake. - Kobe Abe

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills. - The Buddha

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. - Henri Poincare

To doubt is never pleasant, often painful, sometimes agonizing. And in so far as this prompts to inquiry and urges us to decision, it is very useful; but when it induces us to decide without inquiry or evidence, or without the proper use of them, the result is like declaring victory before fighting the battle. If we were so constituted that we could not doubt, what security would there be for the truth? What could more cripple the mind than to deprive it either of the power doubting or the power of believing? To face frankly and fairly the terrors of uncertainty requires courage. Indeed, to think at all, responsibly, rationally, and with absolute fidelity to truth, upon many subjects requires the highest degree of courage. It is easier, perhaps, to stand before a loaded cannon and see the match applied, than to adopt a conclusion utterly destructive to past convictions long cherished, and to the authority upon which they rested. - Logan E. Bleckley


To have doubted one’s own first principles, is the mark of a civilized man. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die. - Oscar Wilde

We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. - Mark Twain

When in doubt of what is right, consult your pillow overnight. - Mexican Proverb

When in doubt, back out on a technicality. - Walter Shapiro

When in doubt, do nothing. - George John Whyte-Melville

When in doubt, do without. - Hofni Samuel

When in doubt, Don’t. - Unknown

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. - Cynthia Heimel

When in doubt, punt! - John Heisman

When in doubt, strategize; if it doesn't work, reorganize. - Srini Rangan

When in doubt, take a deep breath and keep moving. - Laurel K. Hamilton

When in doubt, take it as a compliment. - Angie Lyman

When in doubt, take a deep breath and keep moving. - Laurel K. HamiltonWhen unhappy, one doubts everything; when happy, one doubts nothing. - Joseph Roux

Who knows most, doubts most. - Robert Browning

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow. - Ambrose Bierce

With knowledge grows doubt. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom. - J. R. R. Tolkien

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt. - Thomas Merton

Your own doubt is your opponent’s greatest strength. - Unknown