quotations about doubt
Most men appear wiser in their doubts than in their belief.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Doubt is the stepping-stone to faith.
HARWOOD HUNTINGTIN
Cui Bono?
Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Two Towers
He is without faith who is afraid of doubters.
J. DONALD JOHNSTON
attributed, Quotations from the Wayside
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
The Habit of Being
A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
JOSÉ BERGAMÍN
El cohete y la estrella
The existence of doubt is like a signpost, showing us how far we have to go before we have fully committed ourselves to God.
ALISTER MCGRATH
Doubt in Perspective
Even a little doubt is like a small stone in a traveller's shoe: it lames him. It is a very little thing, but he had better spend a week in picking it out than go on with it there. Believer, thou must get doubt right out of thee, for until thou believest thou wilt never travel well to heaven, or be strong in the Lord.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit
Some believers consider doubt to be the worst of all sins. Personally, I don't think that's true. I'm not sure doubt is a sin at all. I believe doubt often marks the growing points of our faith. Sometimes I think doubt is more the texture of my walk with God than certainty is. I'm convinced most of us doubt, but I know that very few of us are honest about it.
TIM BAKER
Jesus Is for Liars
How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
HOMER
The Odyssey
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
HENRI POINCARÉ
Of Science and Hypotheses
Doubt is a catalyst for owning one's faith and allowing the faith story to continue.
ERIC VENABLE
A Tale of Two Youth Workers
An intelligent, honest, philosophical Doubt is the most formidable of all foes with which Dogmatists have to contend. Then fear not, ye skeptics--Doubt on! Do for the world what unreasoning faith can never accomplish. Help on the work of Reform!
ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS
The Present Age and Inner Life
May there always be a little faith in your doubt.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
The Song of the Seed
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
Faith or Fact
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
Queries
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
H.L. MENCKEN
attributed, 2000 Years of Disbelief
The minute you begin to have doubts, the floor under your feet starts to shake.
KOBO ABE
The Green Stockings
Doubt is the tax man pays for the luxury of useless knowledge.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts