Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.
—Frederick Buechner (b.1926) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Theologian
Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Jealousy lives upon doubts.—It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Obey your soul, have perfect faith in yourself. Never think of yourself with doubt or distrust, or as one who makes mistakes.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
O thou of little faith, wherefore dids’t thou doubt?
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
There is one thing certain, namely, that we can have nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain.
—Samuel Butler
There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Uncertainty hurts business. It annoys individuals. Why keep the whole country, including business and individuals, in uncertainty over the extent of the tax burdens to be placed upon us? How many of those who voted for Calvin Coolidge imagined for a moment that would do nothing to bring about tax relief before 1926? … But if the Administration persists in opposing a special session then it will inevitably be 1926 before action is taken…. Coolidge and Congress should ease our minds and grease our activities by reforming and reducing taxation as soon as feasible after March 4.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The road to perseverance lies by doubt.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass before they can enter the temple of wisdom.—When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us and will serve us again.—But if to avoid the trouble of the search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought, but borrowed it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Believe while others are doubting.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
The longing for certainty … is in every human mind. But certainty is generally illusion.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
When young, you’re shocked by the number of people who turn out to have feet of clay. Older, you’re surprised by the number of people who don’t.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Doubts arise because of an absence of surrender.
—Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian Hindu Mystic
The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Many live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life … The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. Thank God for the unknown future.
—E. Stanley Jones (1884–1973) American Methodist Priest, Theologian
Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.
—Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) American Educationalist
When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
A reasonable probability is the only certainty.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to-date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skeptics, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist