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