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

Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech

When the creation of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault.

Doubt | Fault | Genius | Little | Mind | Sound | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Only when we know little do we know anything; doubt grows with knowledge.

Doubt | Knowledge | Little | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.

Doubt | Knowledge | Little | Wisdom |

Frances Ridley Havergal

Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.

Doubt | Wisdom |

William James

I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness and of their souls’ resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.

Consciousness | Doubt | Habit | Life | Life | Little | Man | People | Wisdom |

Alfred Korzybski, fully Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

Doubt | Life | Life | Thinking | Wisdom |

Wilson Mizner

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.

Doubt | Education | Faith | Respect | Wisdom | Respect |

Robert J. McCracken, D.D.

We all crave happiness, and we have at hand the predisposing conditions which make it possible. Nevertheless, the fact remains that deliberately to pursue happiness is not the surest way of achieving it. Seek it for its own sake and I doubt whether you will find it.

Doubt | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Zeal and curiosity are the twin scourges of the soul: the latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything; the former prevents our leaving anything in doubt or undecided.

Curiosity | Doubt | Soul | Wisdom | Zeal |

Francis Quarles

Silence is the highest wisdom of a fool as speech is the greatest trial of a wise man. If thou wouldst be known as wise, let thy words show thee so; if thou doubt thy words, let thy silence feign thee so. It is not a greater point of wisdom to discover knowledge than to hide ignorance.

Doubt | Ignorance | Knowledge | Man | Silence | Speech | Wisdom | Wise | Words | Trial |

Noah benShea

Fear makes us not only less than we might be but less than we think we are. Faith reminds us we should doubt our fears.

Doubt | Faith | Fear | Wisdom | Think |

Jeremy Taylor

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God. In dwelling on divine mysteries, keep thy heart humble, thy thoughts reverent, thy soul holy. Let not philosophy be ashamed to be confuted, nor logic to be confounded, nor reason to be surpassed. What thou canst not prove, approve; what thou canst not comprehend, believe; what thou canst believe, admire and love and obey. so shall thine ignorance be satisfied in thy faith, and thy doubt be swallowed up in thy reverence, and thy faith be as influential as sight. Put out thing own candle, and then shalt thou see clearly the sun of righteousness.

Doubt | Faith | God | Heart | Ignorance | Logic | Love | Mystery | Philosophy | Reason | Religion | Reverence | Righteousness | Soul | Wisdom |

William Gilmore Simms

No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.

Abstinence | Doubt | Life | Life | Man | Society | Solitude | Wisdom |

José Bergamin, fully José Bergamín Gutiérrez

A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.

Belief | Doubt | Superstition |

Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

Whosoever grows wrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed from the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these things have happened to him by divine dispensation.

Doubt | Reason |

Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter

All theories, all values, all reforms, all revolutions, all change, and all actions are built on the shifting sands of custom and opinion, and the winds of doubt and new circumstances and considerations are always blowing, always rising.

Change | Circumstances | Custom | Doubt | Opinion | Theories |