C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Doubt
Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.
When you doubt, abstain.
Human knowledge is the parent of doubt.
Doubt is the accomplice of tyranny.
When in doubt, lean to the side of mercy.
Misgive that you may not mistake.
Doubt is hell in the human soul.
To be once in doubt is once to be resolved.
Our distrust justifies the deceit of others.
Doubt is the vestibule of faith.
Doubt is the shadow of truth.
I love sometimes to doubt, as well as know.
Man was not made to question, but adore.
Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.
Doubting charms me not less than knowledge.
Every body drags its shadow, and every mind its doubt.
Never do anything, concerning the rectitude of which you have a doubt.
To believe with certainty we must begin to doubt.
Many with trust, with doubt few, are undone.
Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope means recognizing fear.
Doubt springs from the mind; faith is the daughter of the soul.
Galileo called doubt the father of invention; it is certainly the pioneer.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
There is no weariness like that which rises from doubting. It is unfixed reason.
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
Doubt follows white-winged hope with trembling steps.
The doubts of an honest man contain more moral truth than the profession of faith of people under a worldly yoke.
We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.
Weary the path that does not challenge reason. Doubt is an incentive to truth, and patient inquiry leadeth the way.
Servile doubt argues an impotence of mind, that says we fear because we dare not meet misfortunes.
To doubt is worse than to have lost; and to despair is but to antedate those miseries that must fall on us.
In contemplation, if a man begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?
The wound of peace is surety, surety secure; but modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise; the tent that searches to the bottom of the worst.
To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.
Remember Talleyrand’s advice, “If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not, don’t!” The advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of letter-writing.
Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this first great commandment of science consecrated doubt.
People, when asked if they are Christians, give some of the strangest answers you ever heard. Some will say if you ask them: “Well—well—well, I—I hope I am.” Suppose a man should ask me if I am an American. Would I say: “Well, I—well, I—I hope I am?”
To get rid of your doubts, part with your sin. Put away your intemperance, your dishonesty, your unlawful ways of making money, your sensuality, your falsehood, acted or spoken, and see if a holy life be not the best disperser of unwelcome doubts, and new obedience the most certain guide to fresh assurance.
There is no weariness like that which rises from doubting, from the perpetual jogging of unfixed reason. The torment of suspense is very great; and as soon as the wavering, perplexed mind begins to determine, be the determination which way soever, it will find itself at ease.
Nothing is more perplexing than the power, but nothing is more durable than the dynasty of doubt; for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die while any of his subjects live.
When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained a something that will stay by us, and which 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.
Cold hearts are not anxious enough to doubt. Men who love will have their misgivings at times; that is not the evil. But the evil is, when men go on in that languid, doubting way, content to doubt, proud of their doubts, morbidly glad to talk about them, liking the romantic gloom of twilight, without the manliness to say, “I must and will know the truth.” That did not John the Baptist. Brethren, John appealed to Christ.
You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?” In such an hour what remains? I reply, “Obedience.” Leave those thoughts for the present. Act—be merciful and gentle—honest; force yourself to abound in little services; try to do good to others; be true in the duty that you know. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain. And by all the laws of the human heart, by the word of God, you shall not be left to doubt. Do that much of the will of God which is plain to you, and “You shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.”
Fear not to confront realities. The Saviour lives; and the first joy that you will give to Him is when, leaving off your false excuses, you throw yourself with a full heart and empty hands into His arms of mercy. The Saviour lives; and were you now to die looking for salvation only from that Friend of Sinners, verily this day should you be with Him in a better than Adam’s paradise. The Saviour lives; and in full sympathy with that wondrous lover of men’s souls, the Holy Spirit is even now ready if besought to begin His sanctifying process in your mind. The Saviour lives; and even now He stretches out toward you an arm which, if you only grasp in thankful love, your faith shall strengthen while you cling, and it will be from no weakness in that arm, if you are not ere long exalted to a point of holy attainment which at this moment you view with despair, and by and by to that region of unveiled realities where you will ask in wonder at yourself, “Wherefore did I doubt?”