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Doubt Quotes

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Doubt Quotes

“It has long been observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretense to dignify their sect with a distinguished name.”

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Book:The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous
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“We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.”

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Author:Teresa of Avila
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“The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.”

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Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky
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“No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.”

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Book:Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
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“Faith lived in the incognito is one which is located outside the criticism coming from society , from politics , from history , for the very reason that it has itself the vocation to be a source of criticism. It is faith (lived in the incognito) which triggers the issues for the others, which causes everything seemingly established to be placed in doubt , which drives a wedge into the world of false assurances.”

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Book:Hope in Time of Abandonment
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“It is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.”

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Author:Richard Carrier
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“Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

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Book:The Little White Bird (Annotated Edition)
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“The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.”

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Book:Ser. Milton and the Augustan Age
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“By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a nature so completely unexpected--so entirely novel--so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions--as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.”

MindLongBookStatesReasonSeemsTogetherCitiesOpinionNovelDoubtLateEuropeEarsAccountsPhilosophicalPhysicsAstronomyExcitementNo DoubtUnexpectedVarianceRotterdam
Book:The Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated Edition): Annabel Lee, Ligeia, The Sphinx, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-tale Heart, Berenice, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, Eureka…
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“It is incumbent on us diligently to remember that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of mankind cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.”

WorldMindReasonRememberSpiritHeavenPoorHistoryDoubtWiseMankindThis WorldDivinePromiseAbusePossessionContrarySatisfiedKingdomsVainFortunateContemptSuperiorityDisputesCalamityRoman EmpireKingdom Of HeavenIncumbentsPoor In SpiritFuture Happiness
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“If I had any doubts at all about the justice of my dislike for Shakespeare, that doubt vanished completely. What a crude, immoral,vulgar, and senseless work Hamlet is. The whole thing is based on pagan vengeance; the only aim is to gather together as many effects as possible; there is no rhyme or reason about it.”

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Book:Tolstoy's Letters: 1880-1910
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“However we select from nature a complex [of phenomena] using the criterion of simplicity, in no case will its theoretical treatment turn out to be forever appropriate (sufficient).... I do not doubt that the day will come when [general relativity], too, will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that this process of deepening theory has no limits.”

BelieveReasonTurnsI BelieveProcessCasesForeverDoubtAtheismTheoryLimitsComplexesSimplicityPositive AtheismSufficientAppropriateTreatmentYieldTheoreticalCriteriaSelectRelativityGeneral Relativity
Author:Albert Einstein
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“We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study ofphilosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.”

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Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
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“The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.”

HumansReasonPhilosophyWholeResultsViewsOpinionDoubtMysterySubjectsJudgmentPhilosophicalSpeciesCalmUncertaintyRegionsSuperstitionsAccurateObscureDeliberateFuryIrresistibleOpposingRiddleScrutinyContentionInexplicableFrailtyEnigmaContagionHuman Reason
Author:David Hume
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“For better or worse, editing is what editors are for; and editing is selection and choice of material. That editors newspaper or broadcast can and do abuse this power is beyond doubt, but that is no reason to deny the discretion Congress provided.”

ReasonChoicesDoubtMaterialsAbuseCongressDenyNewspapersNo ReasonEditorsEditingSelectionDiscretion
Book:Significant Supreme Court Opinions of the Honorable Warren E. Burger: Chief Justice of the United States
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“The source of Pyrrhonism comes from failing to distinguish between a demonstration, a proof and a probability. A demonstration supposes that the contradictory idea is impossible; a proof of fact is where all the reasons lead to belief, without there being any pretext for doubt; a probability is where the reasons for belief are stronger than those for doubting.”

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Author:Andrew Michael Ramsay
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“I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of value is really quite dangerous.”

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Author:Sam Harris
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“And the reason is found in the first lie - the lie which you hold as the truth about God - that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also?”

IfsInspirationalFirstsReasonLyingFoundReligiousDoubtAcceptanceDependsUltimateMereMortalsOutcomesTrustedRetreatGod's LoveConditionalMere Mortals
Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“If any issue should unite liberals and conservatives, anyone who cares about the integrity of human achievement or respect for human accomplishment, may we not all pledge to avoid the silly censoring that can lead to a codification of Orwell's Newspeak? Consider John Milton's reasons for why good arguments are often lost: 'For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!'”

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Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“The real deep text of music and the whole reason that it has continued with the profundity and urgency that it has for over a thousand years, has to do with what the notes say, what the notes witness, different experiences of hope or doubt that people are able to distill and encode and pass on in this way.”

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Author:Michael Tilson Thomas
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“Stupefaction overrode all other emotion when I saw this creature on the lookout, lying in wait for the game. For it was an ape, a large-sized gorilla. It was in vain that I told myself I was losing my reason: I could entertain not the slightest doubt as to his species. But an encounter with a gorilla on the planet Soror was not the essential outlandishness of the situation. This for me lay in the fact that the ape was correctly dressed, like a man of our world, and above all that he wore his clothes in such an easy manner.”

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Author:Pierre Boulle
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“The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.”

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Book:VOLTAIRE – Premium Collection: Novels, Philosophical Writings, Historical Works, Plays, Poems & Letters (60+ Works in One Volume) - Illustrated: Candide, A Philosophical Dictionary, A Treatise on Toleration, Plato's Dream, The Princess of Babylon, Zadig, The Huron, Socrates, The Sage and the Atheist, Dialogues, Oedipus, Caesar…
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“Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature”

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Book:Nietzsche: Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
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“But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt the truth of the Christian religion; and well they may, for it is too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its articles are proved, or can be proved.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...
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“Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.”

FirstsLooksSoulSelfReasonBlackRealizingWhiteStruggleDoubtIdentityPositionStudentsCollegeExpressionPrideEvidenceHatredMirrorsConfusionDamageNo ReasonExaminationIncompleteSelf HatredPathologyPsychBlack Pride
Author:Barack Obama
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“In studies asking why young people left their family religion, their most frequent response was unanswered doubts and questions. The researchers were surprised: They expected to hear stories of broken relationships and wounded feelings. But the top reason given by young adults was that they did not get answers to their questions.”

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Author:Nancy Pearcey
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“Without a doubt, Robert Rodriguez is the reason I was drawn to it. The fact that he even knew who I was and then was interested in me for the role was amazing. I am a huge fan of his and it's like a bucket list thing for me to be able to work with him and knowing that Jessica Alba and Jeremy Piven were in it I knew that part was going to be good and as you said, the pedigree of the series was great, so it was really one of those things I couldn't resist.”

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Author:Joel McHale
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