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Doubt Quotes

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Doubt Quotes

“To the present writer a careful study of the facts now available seems to leave no doubt that civilization was born at the southeast corner of the Mediterranean.”

Facts Seems Born Study Doubt Civilization Careful Corners Available No Doubt

Author:James Henry Breasted

“When art seems to be empty of meaning, as no doubt some of the abstract painting of our own day actually does seem, what the painting says, indeed what the artist is shrieking at the top of his voice, is that life has become empty of all rational content and coherence, and that, in times like these, is far from a meaningless statement.”

Doe Art Seems Artist Voice Doubt Painting Empty Statements Rational Abstract No Doubt Meaningless Coherence Abstract Painting Times Like These

Book:Art and Technics

Source: Art and Technics

“Faith is the readiness to reveal whatever is concealed. You don't have to conceal doubts by putting on patches of self-confirmation. The readiness to be exposed seems to make the difference between ego's approach to spirituality and an enlightened one.”

Self Seems Faith Spirituality Differences Doubt Ego Approach Enlightened Exposed Patches Concealed Readiness Confirmation

Author:Chogyam Trungpa

“Confidence is a static state. Determination is active. Determination allows for doubt and for humility - both of which are critical in the world today. There is so much that we don’t know, and so much that we know we don’t know. To be overly confident or without doubt seems silly to me. Determination, on the other hand, is a commitment to win, a commitment to fight the good fight.”

Source: Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind

“It seems to me that had I not known Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or Freud or X or Z, I should have thought just as I did, and that I found in them rather an authorization than an awakening. Above all, they taught me to cease doubting, to cease fearing my thoughts, and to let those thoughts lead me to those lands that were not uninhabitable because after all I found them already there .”

Should Seems Found Known Doubt Land Taught Should Have Awakening Cease My Thoughts Leading Me

Book:Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality

Source: Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality

“There are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden's early attitude; if the reader calls it a muddle I shall acquiesce, with the remark that the later position might be considered a more rarefied muddle. But poets rather specialize in muddles and I have no doubt which of the muddles was better for Auden's poetry: one was fertile and usable, the other decidedly is not. Auden sometimes seems to be saying with Henry Clay, "I had rather be right than poetry"; but I am not sure, then, that he is either.”

Ifs Sometimes Seems Might Attitude Doubt Position Poet Reader Good Things Fantastic Not Sure No Doubt Clay Remarks Fertile Muddle Auden

Author:Randall Jarrell

“It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.”

Men May Seems Existence Doubt Atheist Absurd Ardent Theist

Author:Charles Darwin

“I have no doubt that if an actual ticking bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law.”

Ifs Should Real Seems Law Answers Situation Clear Doubt Authority Debate Arise Torture No Doubt Bombs Law Enforcement Enforcement Legal System

Author:Alan Dershowitz

“Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.”

Men Seems Growing Up Doubt Growing Wall Kings Glory Snow Conquer Conqueror Jon Snow

Book:A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

Source: A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

“It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to do with our self-preservation; and that, no doubt, is why the expression of it, the sound of its words, helps us to live our lives.”

Self Helping Reality Seems Lasts Sound Imagination Doubt Our Lives Expression Pressure Analysis No Doubt Preservation Self Preservation

Book:The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination

Source: The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination

“To rest in God's power when your own weaknesses seem to be screaming at you? That's grace! To be confident in who God is for you when you feel overwhelmed by odds against you? That's peace! To stand alone against massive intimidation? That's trust! To know beyond any shadow of a doubt that God is bigger, and therefore you cannot lose? That's the faith that moves mountains!”

Knows Feels Seems Moving Loses Doubt Grace Mountain Weakness Shadow Bigger Massive Odds Overwhelmed Intimidation Stand Alone Be Confident Move Mountains Who God Is Odds Against You

Author:Graham Cooke

“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.”

Source: 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…

“doubt seems the only purity for those who are too fervent to deny, and too lucid to affirm.”

Seems Doubt Deny Purity Fervent

Book:Adventures of the Mind: The Memoirs of Natalie Clifford Barney

Source: Adventures of the Mind: The Memoirs of Natalie Clifford Barney

“The signs that presage growth, so similar, it seems to me, to those in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing, are interpreted falsely as signs of decay. In youth one does not as often misinterpret the signs; one accepts them, quite rightly, as growing pains. One takes them seriously, listens to them, follows where they lead. ... But in the middle age, because of the false assumption that it is a period of decline, one interprets these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of approaching death.”

“Every time I start on a new book, I am a beginner again. I doubt myself, I grow discouraged, all the work accomplished in the past is as though it never was, my first drafts are so shapeless that it seems impossible to go on with the attempt at all, right up until the moment - always imperceptible, there, too, there is a break - when it is has become impossible not to finish it.”

Firsts Book Moments Seems Past Grows Break Doubt Impossible Goes On Accomplished Discouraged Beginners New Books

Book:Force of Circumstance: Hard times

Source: Force of Circumstance: Hard times

“the sea is a place of mystery. One by one, the mysteries of yesterday have been solved. But the solution seems always to bring with it another, perhaps a deeper mystery. I doubt that the last, final mysteries of the sea will ever be resolved. In fact, I cherish a very unscientific hope that they will not be.”

Has Beens Facts Seems Lasts Doubt Mystery Sea Ocean Solutions Finals Deeper Yesterday Cherish

Book:Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

Source: Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

“I doubt if we nuns are really as self-sacrificing as we must seem to be to you who live in the world. We don't give everything for nothing, you know. The mystery plays fair.”

Ifs Knows World Giving Self Play Seems Doubt Sacrifice Mystery Fairs Nun Clergy

Book:Green Dolphin Street

Source: Green Dolphin Street

“Chicago's downtown seems to me to constitute, all in all, the best-looking twentieth-century city, the city where contemporary technique has best been matched by artistry, intelligence, and comparatively moderated greed. No doubt about it, if style were the one gauge, Chicago would be among the greatest of all the cities of the world.”

Ifs World Seems Would Be Cities Doubt Century Style Greed Architecture Technique Contemporary No Doubt Chicago Twentieth Century Artistry Downtown Matched All The Best Gauges

Book:Locations

Source: Locations

“The issue of comparative performances can be regarded as settled to-day, both scientifically and practically. Though differences in attitudes between men and women still form a favorite topic of drawing-room conversation ... women's abilities are no longer seriously in doubt. These discussions rather seem to be a kind of rearguard action carried on after the main battle has been decided.”

Source: Women's Two Roles: Home and Work

“Life seems somehow less shocking, painful, and lonely - and more hopeful, agreeable, and beautiful - when our experiences are confirmed by those of others. Although each of us is unique, there are familiar responses and doubts and joys that let us know we have kin. We are not, after all, too strange to live.”

Knows Seems Beautiful Joy Family Doubt Strange Friends Unique Lonely Response Painful Familiar Hopeful Shocking Family Friends

Author:Rosalie Maggio

“We are making progress militarily, there is no doubt about that. You've seen the reports from Misrata, although reports of the Gaddafi forces completely pulling out of Misrata seem to be exaggerated.”

Seems Force Doubt Progress No Doubt Reports Pulling Exaggerated Gaddafi

Author:William Hague

“Never for a moment have I had one doubt about my religious beliefs. There are people who believe only so far as they can understand--that seems to me presumptuous and sets their understanding as the standard of the universe.”

People Believe Moments Seems Religion Faith Universe Belief Understanding Religious Doubt Standards Religious Belief Presumptuous

Book:The papers of Woodrow Wilson

Source: The papers of Woodrow Wilson

“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

“A friend of mine tells me that a Beethoven symphony can solve for him a problem of conduct. I've no doubt that it does so simply by giving him a sense of the tragedy and the greatness of human destiny, which makes his personal anxieties seem small, which throws them into a new proportion.”

Giving Humans Doe Problem Seems Destiny Worry Doubt Greatness Mines Anxiety Tragedy Solve No Doubt Proportion Symphony

Book:Art and reality: ways of the creative process

Source: Art and reality: ways of the creative process

“Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he maycommunicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader's realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. In photography the goal seems to be to prove beyond a doubt that the cameraman, in his great moment of creation, was either hanging by his heels from the rafters or was wedged under the floor with his lens in a knothole.”

“It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain; and I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than polished diamond.”

Seems Doubt Grace British Britain Rough Diamond Polished Great Britain

Author:Lord Chesterfield

“Over and over victims are blamed for their assaults. And when we imply that victims bring on their own fates - whether to make ourselves feel more efficacious or to make the world seem just - we prevent ourselves from taking the necessary precautions to protect ourselves. Why take precautions? We deny the trauma could easily have happened to us. And we also hurt the people already traumatized. Victims are often already full of self-doubt, and we make recovery harder by laying inspectors blame on them.”

People World Feels Self Seems Hurt Doubt Fate Happened Protect Harder Victim Blame Deny Trauma Recovery Assault Self-doubt Precaution Inspectors

Author:Anna C Salter

“It seems to me that doubt is worse than trial. I had sooner suffer any affliction than be left to question the gospel or my own interest in it.”

Seems Christian Suffering Left Interest My Own Doubt Trials Affliction

Book:The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon, Volume 29: Sermons 1698-1756

Source: The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon, Volume 29: Sermons 1698-1756

“God's favorites, especially God's favorites, are not immune from the bewildering times when God seems silent. Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either. Faith demands uncertainty, confusion. The Bible includes many proofs of God's concern - some quite spectacular - but no guarantess. A guarantee would, after all, preclude faith.”

Seems Faith Opportunity Religious Doubt Demand Concern Silent Proof Confusion Uncertainty Guarantees Spectacular Immune Proof Of God

Author:Paul Tournier

“Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, hélas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about: Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”

Knows Mind Wells May Mean Seems Behinds Doubt Written Wind Draws Fairs Letters Rounds Lists Vain Necks Diamond Hunts Deer Fainting Noli Me Tangere

Author:Thomas Wyatt

“Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding.”

Believe Seems Faith Understanding Doubt

Book:A Philosophical Dictionary

Source: A Philosophical Dictionary

“Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin's lyrics often do - sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton's and Bernie's personal styles, no doubt about it.”

Way Sometimes Seems Doubt Style Conflict Clever No Doubt Pretentious Personal Style

Author:Jon Landau

“People talk so much to me about the beauty of confidence. They seem to entirely ignore the much more subtle beauty of doubt. To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. The Apostle Thomas was artistic up to a certain point. He appreciated the value of shadows in a picture. To be on the alert is to live. To be lulled into security is to die.”

People Believe Seems Certain Values Dies Doubt Security Shadow Artistic Dull Subtle Appreciated Apostles

Author:Robert Smythe Hichens

“Sometimes my doubt seems intuitive, but most likely it derives from an implausibility or a logical problem I may at first find difficult to identify and articulate. It is interesting to me to work through questions that arise in this way.”

Way Firsts May Sometimes Problem Seems Difficult Interesting Doubt Arise Logical Intuitive

Author:Marilynne Robinson

“As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.”

Seems America Process Pay Doubt Palestinian Penalties Seriousness

Author:Elliott Abrams

“I'm a reasonable kind of guy. If I hear something that seems to make sense, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If the alternative explanation has to be pounded into shape before it fits the mould of our experience, it seems to me that it's unlikely to be true.”

Ifs Giving Kind Seems Guy Doubt Willing Fit Shapes Benefits Being True Alternatives Make Sense Explanation Reasonable Unlikely Mould Benefit Of The Doubt

Author:Frank Schatzing

“Flee and your bad behavior will be fixed in people's minds. Return, seem in goo spirits, and everyone will doubt their own memory of events.”

People Mind Seems Spirit Memories Doubt Events Return Behavior Fixed Bad Behavior

Book:A Most Unsuitable Man

Source: A Most Unsuitable Man

“There is scarcely room for doubt that something in the psychological relation of a mother-in-law to a son-in-law breeds hostility between them and makes it hard for them to live together. But the fact that in civilized societies mothers-in-law are such a favourite subject for jokes seems to me to suggest that the emotional relation involved includes sharply contrasted components. I believe, that is, that this relation is in fact an 'ambivalent' one, composed of conflicting affectionate and hostile impulses.”

Source: Totem and Taboo

“We don't need to invest all of our faith in every concept, in every symbol, in every opinion that forms the totality of our knowledge. Faith means to believe in something 100% without a doubt, and to doubt our own knowledge can seem like the most frightening thing that can happen to us.”

Needs Believe Mean Seems Happens Form Opinion Doubt Concepts Symbols Frightening Totality

Author:Miguel Angel Ruiz

“These days it seems that physical truth can easily be rearranged, rethought, or re-created outright. Any image can be made pristine, all the warts can be removed. But returning to the source of a thing - the real source - means the photographer has to watch, dig, listen for voices, sniff the smells, and have many doubts. My life in photography has been lived as a skeptic.”

Mean Has Beens Made Real Seems Voice Watches Doubt Source Photography Photographer Smell These Days Skeptic Pristine Warts

Author:Jerome Liebling

“It seems to me that all of us, in our own way, have our own personal lagos. We all have within us a voice that is whispering doubt, that is whispering suspicion, that's telling us there's something wrong, there's something missing, there's something that should be different. And we easily become hypnotized by that voice of doubt.”

Way Should Different Seems Voice Doubt Missing Suspicion Whispering

Author:Arjuna Ardagh

“I do - oh, indeed I do - desire to live up to my profession, to be His, for time and eternity. But I am learning to sec how very weak I am, and how easily Satan can conquer me even when I do strive against him. I do believe with my head that Jesus can, and will give me His grace, and I do not need to fear, yet somehow my heart seems to be hard and cold and not to take it in. Oh, if we were but there - where there is no more sin ! Oh do not forget to pray for me, and don't ever doubt the love of your unworthy friend.”

“There is less gray area there, less doubt. There is a security in being some thing all the way. Our culture, too, encourages this way of being - exaggeration, for example, is the key to advertising success in the United States. But hyperbole also seems a big part of Iranian culture, as well.”

Way Wells States Bigs Seems Culture United United States Doubt Security Example Keys Areas Advertising Gray Exaggeration Iranian Hyperbole Gray Area

Author:Porochista Khakpour

“Eros doomed! I doubt it...eros seems to drive most relationships, and not just those between lovers. Erotic energy is a big powerful force, it shakes things up, causes people to break the rules, makes people do crazy things! Reason doesn't stand a chance in its face.”

People Reason Bigs Seems Faces Energy Force Causes Chance Powerful Break Doubt Crazy Lovers Shakes Doomed Erotic Eros Crazy Things

Author:Micheline Aharonian Marcom

“Taking photographs seems to be a means to express some kind of emotional, abstractive narrative. I look at the images that I'm most proud of like a film about the world the way I see it (or at least saw it at that moment, a perspective that seems to be ever-shifting and filled with self-doubt.)”

World Way Looks Kind Mean Self Moments Seems Film Doubt Saws Emotional Perspective Proud Filled Photograph Narrative That Moment Shifting Self-doubt

Author:Anton Yelchin