Quotes · Skopia

22 quotes

SortEditorial Year Length

Topic·Doubt and skepticism✕clear

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.

1908

★ 1.1

A man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well.

Gaius Petronius

Satyricon · 66

★ 1.2

Scripture · Religious literature

Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.

John 4:48 · 90

★ 1.9

Philosophical literature

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

1605

★ 1.9

There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

Alfred Tennyson

In Memoriam A.H.H. · 1850

★ 1.9

The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.

1973

★ 1.9

One of the meanings of human existence, the source of human freedom, is never to accept anything as definitive, untouchable, obvious, or immobile.

Michel Foucault

1980

★ 1.9

Novel · Coming of age story

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

Charles Dickens

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 2.2

Film · Adventure (film) · Adventure

Every time someone says "I do not believe in fairies", somewhere there's a fairy that falls down dead.

Hook · 1991

★ 2.2

Play · Comedy (play)

Our doubts are traitors And makes us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.

William Shakespeare

Measure for Measure · 1616

★ 2.3

The road to resolution lies by doubt: The next way home's the farthest way about.

Francis Quarles

Emblems · 1635

★ 3.5

Scripture · Religious literature

I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

Mark 9:24

60

★ 3.7

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything.

1886

★ 3.7

Personal journal

There is nothing more awe-inspiring than a miracle except the credulity that can take it at par.

1904

★ 3.7

We need more dissent and less dogma.

2015

★ 3.7

Doubt is not a pleasant condition. But certainty is an absurd one.

1770

★ 3.8

Epigram · Philosophical literature

The skeptical are the most credulous.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.9

Scientific literature

To doubt everything and to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; each saves us from thinking.

Science and Hypothesis · 1902

★ 4.3

Scripture · Religious literature

Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

John 20:25 · 90

★ 4.5

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

George Santayana

1923

★ 5.2

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Life of Pi (novel) · 2001

★ 5.2

Doubt grows with knowledge.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1819

★ 5.5