Peter Abelard Quotes

Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.

It is by doubting that we come to investigate, and by investigating that we recognize the truth.

Skepticism is the first step towards truth.

By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

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

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.

In doubting we come to inquiry; by inquiry we perceive the truth.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.

Religion asks you to believe things without questioning, and technology and science always encourage you to ask hard questions and why it is important in science and technology. So I was always interested in science and technology.

Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man's onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

I love to doubt as well as know.

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

A question is a pursuit, an invitation to envision and explore a series of possibilities, to struggle and empathize and doubt and believe. The question moves, whereas our sense of what an answer is can often be static, a stopping point.

It is wiser to find out than to suppose.

My skepticism is strong, but my curiosity is stronger.

Belief in truth begins with doubting all that has hitherto been believed to be true.

Skepticism may undermine beliefs, but never belief.