Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe, and doubt in order than you may end in believing the truth.

Doubt | Order | Truth | Afraid |

Friedrich von Hügel, formally Baron Friedrich Maria Aloys Franz Karl Freiherr von Hugel

Now there is no doubt that the prayer of quiet, that a certain formless recollection and loving feeding upon the sense and presence of God, as here and now, is a most legitimate prayer.

Doubt | God | Prayer | Quiet | Sense |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you ravenous for more knowledge. You can’t get full eating this way. The wise person dines on something more subtle: he eats the understanding that the named was born from the unnamed, that all being flows from non-being, that the describable world emanates from an indescribable source. He finds this subtle truth inside his own self, and becomes completely content.

Doubt | Knowledge | Self | Truth | Understanding | Wise | World |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The cure works best when the doctor himself believes in his own formulae, otherwise he may be overcome by scientific doubt and so lose the proper convincing tone.

Doubt |

John Locke

One great Reason why many Children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they found their Curiosity baulk’d and their Enquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and Respect and their Questions answered, as they should, to their Satisfaction, I doubt not but they would have taken more Pleasure in Learning and improving their Knowledge, wherein there would be still Newness and Variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same Play and Playthings.

Children | Curiosity | Doubt | Kindness | Knowledge | Learning | Play | Pleasure | Reason | Respect | Time | Respect |

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

Our beliefs serve myriad purposes: They help us to organize the world in meaningful ways… They can also connect us with the transcendent dimensions of experience, and give us inspiration and hope, essential tools for confronting those moments of confusion and doubt that are so often part of life.

Doubt | Experience | Hope | Inspiration | Life | Life | World |

Laurens van der Post, fully Sir Laurens Jan van der Post

Human beings are perhaps never more frightened than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

Doubt | Right |

John Greenleaf Whittier

Hatred of cant and doubt of human creeds may well be felt; the unpardonable sin is to deny the word of God from within.

Doubt | God | Sin | God |

Lewis Cass

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

Doubt | People | Will |