Quotes About Doubt

Like belief, doubt takes a lot of different forms, from ancient Skepticism to modern scientific empiricism, from doubt in many gods to doubt in one God, to doubt that recreates and enlivens faith and doubt that is really disbelief.

I have no doubt that faith is only pure when it does not negate the faith of another. I have no doubt that evil can be fought and that indifference is no option. I have no doubt that fanaticism is dangerous. And of all the books in the world on life, I have no doubt that the life of one person weighs more than them all.

Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. And each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt. The conquered of today may become the conqueror of tomorrow. Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith. Otherwise it would be indifference.

I had written a lot about my dog dying before. I wrote a newspaper column about it and it turned out to be the most popular column I'd ever written. That and the lame Joni Mitchell column I did. But the dog column, my god! People love dogs. Anybody who writes regularly should know, when in doubt: dogs! If you're a columnist, when in doubt, write a column about the culture of narcissism - like a scolding column about the culture of narcissism - or write something about dogs. That's the homerun in my take.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Doubt is a foundling unhappy and astray, and though his own mother who gave him birth should find him and enfold him, he would withdraw in caution and in fear.

I had a family. They can be a nuisance in identity but there is no doubt no shadow of doubt that that identity the family identity we can do without.

Diane von Furstenberg actually gave me a very good piece of advice. She said, 'When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt,' so that's something I'm going with. I think that's a really good answer: Just don't listen to the doubts. Your doubts are generated by fear, and fear is a series of distorted thoughts."

Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.

The Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy, even though they have significant oil revenues. So I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior. But have no doubt, but have no doubt that the Iranians continue on the path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world.

Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.

For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt-wait.

The child..will try to make himself..independent of other people. .. Excesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..The child [uses] ‘doubt about food to hide doubt about love.’

Let go the things of which you are in doubt for the things in which there is no doubt.

Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.

What has happened to create this doubt is that a problem (such as a deep conflict or a bad experience) has been allowed to usurp God's place and become the controlling principle of life. Instead of viewing the problem from the vantage point of faith, the doubter views faith from the vantage point of the problem. Instead of faith sizing up the problem, the situation ends with the problem scaling down faith. The world of faith is upside down, and in the topsy-turvy reality of doubt, a problem has become god and God has become a problem.

Don't ever doubt yourself because there are enough people in the world that are going to doubt you.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.

Doubt everything [...]. Doubt everything at least once. What you decide to keep, you'll be able to be confident of. And what you decide to ditch, you will replace with what your instincts tell you is true.

Don't doubt your faith; doubt your doubts for they are unreliable.

The starting-point and chief principle of every science, and hence of theology also, is not only methodical doubt, but positive doubt. One can believe only what one has perceived to be true from reasonable grounds, and consequently one must have the courage to continue doubting until one has found reliable grounds to satisfy the reason.

Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure.

I doubt that I am the first member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won't be the last.

Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility - that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve - slowly, no doubt, but certainly - God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.

My children without a doubt are my greatest accomplishment. If I did nothing else I would feel just having and raising them would be enough. The rest is icing.

As a writer, you live in permanent self-doubt; youre on permanent trial.

No one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions.

Whenever you're in doubt about any action, ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? You can also ask, what would love do now?

I'm not in favor of no government. You do need a government. But by doing so many things that the government has no business doing, it cannot do those things which it alone can do well. There's no other institution in my opinion that can provide us with protection of our life and liberty. However, the government performs that basic function poorly today, precisely because it is devoting too much of its efforts and spending too much of our income on things which are harmful. So I have no doubt that that's the major single problem we face.

Many may very well continue to ask why more value is placed on technicalities of a law than on a man's flesh and blood life, especially when there is any amount of "doubt" at all regarding his guilt or innocence.

IN MY NERVOUSNESS FOR THIS SPEECH AND MY MOMENTS OF DOUBT, I'VE TOLD MYSELF FIRMLY, 'IF NOT ME, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN?'

After all these years of creating my collections, I still doubt my decision even until the last minute before the fashion show, I keep questioning myself and wondering if I did the right thing.

In case of doubt, push on just a little further and then keep on pushing.

Be patient, for it is from doubt that knowledge is born.

If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

There is no doubt that human survival will continue to depend more and more on human intellect and technology. It is idle to argue whether this is good or bad. The point of no return was passed long ago, before anyone knew it was happening.

I think love is often a bit selfish, even before we had consumerism. That's not new. A consumer society gives you the illusion of having massive amounts of choice and saddles you with the freedom of being able to dabble in that choice. And at the same time, you are left with the tyranny of self-doubt and uncertainty about whether you made the right choice.

Among people I have met, the few whom I would term “great” all share a kind of unquestioned, fierce dedication; an utter lack of doubt about the value of their activities (or at least an internal impulse that drives through any such angst); and above all, a capacity to work (or at least to be mentally alert for unexpected insights) at every available moment of every day of their lives.

When 99% of people doubt your idea, you're either gravely wrong or about to make history.

The cards are stacked (quite properly, I imagine) against all professional aesthetes, and no doubt we all deserve the dark, wordy, academic deaths we all sooner or later die.

In his voice resonated the timbre of a man who thinks he has convinced himself of an idea, but masks his own doubt by laboring to persuade others.

As the music played over the speakers and the waterfall in the pool filled the silence around us, I knew that without a doubt I had just been ruined.

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

Doubt is nothing but a trivial agitation on the surface of the soul, while deep down there is a calm certainty.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

I've always avoided those sorts of self-assessments because if you give yourself a 10 out of 10 people think you're a big head, if you give yourself a 6 out of 10 they think you're plagued with self-doubt, so I'm just not going to rate myself.

I want to state unequivocally for the world, as well as for the markets, as well as for the American people: I have no doubt that we will not lose the full faith and credit of the United States.