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Doubt Quotes

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Doubt Quotes

“The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like a giving hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.”

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“The relations between parents and children are certainly not only those of constraint. There is spontaneous mutual affection, which from the first prompts the child to acts of generosity and even of self-sacrifice, to very touching demonstrations which are in no way prescribed. And here no doubt is the starting point for that morality of good which we shall see developing alongside of the morality of right or duty, and which in some persons completely replaces it.”

Source: The Moral Judgement of the Child

“Like many people, I have no religion, and I am just sitting in a small boat drifting with the tide. I live in the doubts of my duty.... I think there is dignity in this, just to go on working.... Today we stand naked, defenseless, and more alone than at any time in history. We are waiting for something, perhaps another miracle, perhaps the Martians. Who knows?”

People Thinking Knows Today Waiting Doubt Atheism Duty Goes On Sitting Dignity Miracle Positive Atheism Naked Boat Tides Drifting Defenseless Martians Waiting For Something

Author:Federico Fellini

“To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.”

Doubt Duty Misfortunes Unfortunate Unfair Indispensable When In Doubt

Book:The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

Source: The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

“Peace with the Palestinians will open ports of peace all around the Mediterranean. The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly, even in the face of hostility, in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.”

Faces Leader Doubt Imagine Duty Disappointment Pursue Palestinian Hostility Port

Author:Shimon Peres

“I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right.”

Feels Wells Sometimes Seems Faces Work Doubt Duty Conscience Profound Satisfaction Following Superiors Emptiness Midst Spontaneous Obeying Ennui Sneer Fatality

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“What, then is our duty? It is to carefully distinguish the historic moment in which we live and to consciously assign our small energies to a specific battlefield. The more we are in phase with the current which leads the way, the more we aid man in his difficult, uncertain, danger-fraught ascent toward salvation.”

Men Way Life War Moments Energy Difficult History Doubt Military Danger Duty Difficulty Anger Adversity Salvation Currents Aids Phases Uncertain Historic Battlefields Ascent

Book:Report to Greco

Source: Report to Greco

“In all common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view what is out duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is often the best. In these cases, doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty; as it was in Balaam upon the second message.”

Firsts Views Common Cases Doubt Honest Duty Messages Ordinary Observation Dishonesty Deliberation Balaam

Book:The Whole Works of Joseph Butler ...

Source: The Whole Works of Joseph Butler ...

“Cutting corners no doubt makes the job easier for the government, but making the government's job easier is rarely a priority. Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is.”

Firsts Stills Government Jobs Fighting Doubt Cutting Duty Citizens Easier Constitution Intention Corners Priorities No Doubt Good Intentions Cutting Corners

Author:Wesley Pruden

“Our first duty to liberty is to keep our own. But it is also our duty - as Europeans - to keep alive in the Eastern as well as the Western half of our continent those ideas of human dignity which Europe gave to the world. Let us therefore resolve to keep the lamps of freedom burning bright so that all who look to the West from the shadows of the East need not doubt that we remain true to those human and spiritual values that lie at the heart of European civilization.”

Source: In defence of freedom: speeches on Britain's relations with the world 1976-1986

“True belief is not about blind submission. It is about open-eyed acceptance, and acceptance requires persistent distance from the truth, and that distance is doubt. Doubt, in other words, can feed faith, rather than destroy it. And it forces us, even while believing, to recognize our fundamental duty with respect to God's truth: humility. We do not know. Which is why we believe.”

Knows Believe Belief Force Doubt Acceptance Humility Duty Fundamentals Blind Distance Submission Persistent

Author:Andrew Sullivan

“Sloth is the great enemy -- the inspirer of cowardice, irresolution, self-pitying grief, and trivial, hairsplitting doubts. Sloth may also be a psychological cause of sickness. It is tempting to relax from our duties, take refuge in ill-health and hide under a nice warm blanket.”

May Self Causes Grief Enemy Doubt Nice Duty Ill Warm Psychological Sickness Relax Cowardice Refuge Blanket Sloth Tempting Ill Health

Author:Patanjali