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doubt quotes

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“Thou doubtest because thou lovest the truth.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“The best lack all conviction, . . . while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion
“When in doubt, tell the truth.” Mark Twain, Following the Equator
“He who has a conception of what it means to live upon spirit knows also what the hunger of doubt is, and that the doubter hungers just as much for the daily bread of life as for the nutriment of the spirit.” Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
“To prolong doubt was to prolong hope.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.” Bram Stoker, Dracula
“Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?” Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
“Sometimes I lose faith in human nature for a time; I am assailed by doubt.” William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they try to hide their doubts and fears.” Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
“The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and...” René Descartes, Discourse on the Method
“if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
“Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.” William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
“Doubt . . . may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.” Jane Austen, Emma
“That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
“the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
“The dead should be judged as we judge criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of a doubt.” Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
“Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.” J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
“But what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels.” René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!” Bram Stoker, Dracula
“You can either waltz boldly onto the stage of life and live the way you know your spirit is nudging you to, or you can sit quietly by the wall, receding into the shadows of fear and self-doubt.” Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure
“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.” Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
“But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat;” René Descartes, Discourse on the Method
“The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.” H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
“And this same knowledge extends likewise to all other things which I recollect having formerly demonstrated, such as the truths of geometry and the like; for what can be alleged against them to cause me to place them in doubt?” René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
“Scepticism means not intellectual Doubt alone, but moral Doubt; all sorts of infidelity, insincerity, spiritual paralysis.” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History
“Glory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul; the last prompts us to thrust our noses into everything, the other forbids us to leave anything doubtful and undecided.” Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

Related topics

certainty knowledge fear truth love existence judgement difficulty spirit curiosity conviction reason experience attempt science criticism philosophy morality encouragement scepticism

Related authors

René Descartes (4)
William Shakespeare (3)
Bertrand Russell (2)
George MacDonald (2)
Bram Stoker (2)
Immanuel Kant (1)
Frank Herbert (1)
Michel de Montaigne (1)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
Jane Austen (1)
Oprah Winfrey (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Francis Bacon (1)
Stephen King (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)
Thomas Carlyle (1)
J. K. Rowling (1)
Samuel Butler (1)
William Makepeace Thackeray (1)
William Faulkner (1)

Related sources

Dracula (2)
Hamlet (2)
Lilith (2)
Discourse on the Method (2)
The Problems of Philosophy (2)
Meditations on First Philosophy (2)
Critique of Pure Reason (1)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1)
Vanity Fair (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Fear and Trembling (1)
Letters to a Young Poet (1)
Following the Equator (1)
Emma (1)
Measure for Measure (1)
The Time Machine (1)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
What I Know For Sure (1)
As I Lay Dying (1)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (1)