Quotes About Doubt

Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt, or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith. And yet I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world; I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted, and not left alone. I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.

My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.

Doubt is a powerful tool. Doubt challenges my beliefs and breaks the spell of all the lies and superstitions that control my world. I use doubt to recover faith in myself, to take my power back from every superstition I believe in, and return that power to myself.

Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.

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.

When you see data, doubt [them]! When you see measurements, doubt them!

Was he a good kisser, Ms. Lane?” Barrons asked, watching me carefully. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand at the memory. “It was like being owned.” Some women like that.” Not me.” Perhaps it depends on the man doing the owning.” I doubt it. I couldn’t breathe with him kissing me.” One day you may kiss a man you can’t breathe without, and find breath is of little consequence.” Right, and one day my prince might come.” I doubt he’ll be a prince, Ms. Lane. Men rarely are.

When you are in doubt, wait. Fall back on the contemplation of your vision, and increase your faith and purpose. And by all means, in times of doubt and indecision, cultivate gratitude.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.

Doubt is a very important trait. Out of doubt comes thinking, decisions, choices. We learn stuff. We learn to make mistakes. Or not to.

He must also know evil, hate and bigotry as real phenomena, but he must see love as the greater force. He must not doubt this even for a moment or he is lost. His only salvation is to dedicate himself to love, in the same fashion as Gandhi did to militant nonviolence, as Socrates to truth, as Jesus did to love and as More did to integrity. Only then will he have the strength to combat the forces of doubt, confusion and contradiction. He can depend upon no on or no thing for reinforcement and assurance but himself.

Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties. It sometimes comprised more than this, but it always included this. It was the opposite of doubt and of the spirit of doubt. What irreverent men called credulity, reverent men called faith; and although one word was more respectful than the other, yet the two words were with most men strictly synonymous.

In every work out there comes a moment where you have to decide to keep pushing hard - through the doubt, discomfort and fear of the pain. You have two choices at this point - to push through and to mentally divorce your mind of the doubt, discomfort and fear or you can surrender.

Our wise old church...has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be given to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you.

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

The death, and the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus happened over three days. Friday was the day of suffering and pain and agony. Saturday was the day of doubt and confusion and misery. But Easter, that Sunday, was the day of hope and joy and victory. You will face these three days over and over and over in your lifetime. And when you do, you’ll find yourself asking, as I did, three fundamental questions: Number one, what do I do in my days of pain? Two, how do I get through my days of doubt and confusion? Three, how do I get to the days of joy and victory? The answer is Easter.

I have more self-doubt than any writer I've ever known.... The positive aspect of self-doubt - if you can channel it into useful activity instead of being paralyzed by it - is that by the time you reach the end of a novel, you know precisely why you made every decision in the narrative, the multiple purposes of every metaphor and image.

We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

The scientists who are working 80 hours a week trying to do their science are up against PR guys who know how to spin things and how to create doubt. Creating doubt around tobacco for fifty years when they absolutely knew it caused cancer, that was a real talent. But meanwhile, the scientists, they're not there to go on television. Their brains don't work like that.

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.

If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I doubt that you would read a close friend's early efforts and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger down your throat. I think you might say something along the lines of, 'Good for you. We can work out some of the problems later, but for now, full steam ahead!

What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear... in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man.

The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation or this case of Ebola so that it does not spread widely throughout this country. There's no doubt in my mind, we will stop it here.

Don't imagine that you'll discover {the truth} by accumulating more knowledge. Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you ravenous for more knowledge. You can't get full eating this way.

When I first went into freelancing, I think there was a period of about eight months when nothing happened. Everything that I wrote crumbled up, and then it became a self-destructive thing - when you begin to doubt yourself, when doubt turns into - it's sort of like impotence. Once impotent, you're forever impotent. Because you're always worried about being impotent.

Let those who believe, believe. Let those who doubt, doubt.

Now of all the idealist abominations that make society pestiferous I doubt if there be any so mean as that of forcing self-sacrifice on a woman under the pretense that she likes it.

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.

People tend to care about dogs because they generally have more experience with dogs as companions; but other animals are as capable of suffering as dogs are. Few people feel sympathy for rats. Yet rats are intelligent animals, and there can be no doubt that rats are capable of suffering and do suffer from countless painful experiments performed on them. If the army were to stop experiments on dogs and switch to rats instead, we should not be any less concerned.

If you're uncertain when life begins, why not give the unborn the benefit of the doubt and oppose abortion?

Every time I work out in the gym, every time I train, I know I'm going to do well. But I like surprising the fans, the critics, the people who doubt me.

Our biggest enemy is our own self-doubt. We really can achieve extraordinary things in our lives. But we sabotage our greatness because of our fear

What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and doubt? Between renouncing the mystery and embracing it?

Sometimes you're not sure about a player. Sometimes you doubt. Sometimes you have to guess. Sometimes you just know.

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

Im going to always rise above the doubt that may exist about me.

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.

It has been said "the truth will make men free". The truth alone has never set anyone free. It is only DOUBT which will bring mental emancipation.

Thank you for this lovely blunt object that I will forevermore use as a weapon against self-doubt.

Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.

What is the result of our investigation of the Moslem idea of God? Is the statement of the Koran true, "Your God and our God is the same"? In as far as Moslems are monotheists and in as far as Allah has many of the attributes of Jehovah we cannot put Him with the false gods. But neither can there be any doubt that Mohammed's conception of God is inadequate, incomplete, barren and grievously distorted. It is vastly inferior to the Christian idea of the Godhead and also inferior to the Old Testament idea of God.

I don't mean to sound immodest, but I never had any doubt that I'd be successful, nor any fear of success. I was raised as a little goddess who was told she would be a star.

Indecision, doubt and fear. The members of this unholy trio are closely related; where one is found, the other two are close at hand.

At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit.... No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it healthy and a paradise; as the laws of man's own constitution but wait to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness.

So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.

Should doubt knock at your doorway, just say to those skeptical, disturbing, rebellious thoughts: "I propose to stay with my faith, with the faith of my people."

A man's religion consists, not of the many things he is in doubt of and tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of and has no need of effort for believing.