Quotes about doubt

I’ve grown out of seeking emotional self-destruction. But even now the doubts are slithering in, making me question whether the hellish foundation my life is built on genuinely equates to coping.

I’m arguing with myself and I can’t tell who’s winning.

I wished that I could pray. Then I did pray, “God, I don’t believe that you exist, and I believe that if you do exist you’re an impersonal entity and that if you notice the fall of sparrows you don’t do anything about it, on request or otherwise, but if I’m wrong, I’m sorry. And in case I’m wrong I pray to you that...”

Having been involved in a couple of lawsuits as an expert probability witness and having observed that a prudent skepticism is often less prized than an indefensible certainty, I turned down preliminary requests from both sides to testify.

Always be smart; seldom be certain.

“It is a great weakness of credomancers, Miss Edwards. They often believe their own press.”

”You’re a credomancer, too,” Emily said.

“I’m also a woman. Failure, struggle, and doubt are my constant companions. They are not always pleasant, but they inoculate me against overconfidence. As such, I would not trade them for all the arrogant bravado in the world.”

“Ever wonder if you’ve done the right thing?” I asked him finally.

“Frequently,” he replied. “Legalities notwithstanding, to not wonder indicates a dangerous lack of awareness of the nearly infinite array of choices presented by life.”

“We don’t have enough evidence to decide either way,” Ricasso said, “so for now we may as well keep open minds.”

She would worry, just as you worry. It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.

Somewhere in me was a rod of steel to which I clung. I’d had a vision, as good as any vision given to any poet, sage, or prophet in the past. I wasn’t elated, I wasn’t confident even, but somehow, I knew, and with the end of doubt had come the death of despair.

Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason.

Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by speculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.