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Doubt Quotes

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Doubt Quotes

“Man is without doubt the most interesting fool there is. He concedes that God made the angels immune from pain and death, and that he could have been similarly kind to man, but denies that he was under any moral obligation to do so.”

Men Kind Has Beens Made Pain Interesting Moral Doubt Fool Angel Deny Obligation Could Have Been Most Interesting Immune Moral Obligation

Author:Mark Twain

“Skepticism means, not intellectual doubt alone, but moral doubt.”

Mean Moral Doubt Intellectual Skepticism

Book:Selections from Carlyle

Source: Selections from Carlyle

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.”

Source: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848

“The classical argument for why a supposedly decent and moral creature like Homo sapiens can mistreat and even extirpate other species rests upon an extreme position in a continuum. The Cartesian tradition, formulated explicitly in the seventeenth century, but developed in "folk" and other versions throughout human history no doubt, holds that other animals are little more than unfeeling machines, with only humans enjoying "consciousness," however defined.”

“Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts; it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may.”

World Wells May Mean Facts Fall Views Moral Doubt Materials Blessing Point Of View Contribution Chips Objectivity Doubting Everything

Author:Aldo Leopold

“And last of all we have the secondary forms of crystals bursting in upon us, and sparkling in the rigidity of mathematical necessity and telling us, neither of harmony of design, usefulness or moral significance, nothing but spherical trigonometry and Napier's analogies. It is because we have blindly excluded the lessons of these angular bodies from the domain of human knowledge that we are still in doubt about the great doctrine that the only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.”

Source: The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862

“There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.”

Situation Moral Doubt No Doubt Initials Variation Geometry Theorems

Author:John Rawls

“I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them.”

“I have no doubt that historians will conclude that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.”

Enough Moral Doubt Century Civilization Preserves No Doubt Historian Twentieth Century

Author:Aiden Wilson Tozer

“None within the sound of my voice should be in any doubt concerning what is moral and what is not, nor should any be in doubt about what is expected of us ... We have been and continue to be taught God's laws. Despite what you may see or hear elsewhere, these laws are unchanging.”

Should May Has Beens Law Sound Voice Moral Doubt Taught Expected Despite Elsewhere Unchanging

Author:Thomas S. Monson

“... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.”

Knows May Matter Moral Doubt Certainty Sufficient Behaviour

Author:Rene Descartes

“We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.”

World Littles Might Moral Doubt Happenings No Doubt New World Lament

Book:The Portable Voltaire

Source: The Portable Voltaire

“I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.”

Ifs Philosophy Action Religion Moral Doubt Cutting Morality Disputes Refrain When In Doubt Moral Philosophy

Book:The Portable Voltaire

Source: The Portable Voltaire

“[My novels] introduce levels of intelligence ... moral doubt [and] self-doubt, which may not pertain [to real-world espionage].”

World May Real Self Levels Moral Novel Doubt Real World Introducing Espionage Self-doubt

Author:John le Carre

“Blake expressed some doubt as to whether God had made the tiger. But the tiger is in many ways an admirable animal. We have now to ask whether God made the tapeworm. And it is questionable whether an affirmative answer fits in either with what we know about the process of evolution or what many of us believe about the moral perfection of God.”

Ifs Knows Way Believe Made Asks Process Answers Animal Moral Doubt Evolution Fit Perfection Tigers Admirable Affirmative Questionable Blake Moral Perfection

Author:John B. S. Haldane