Benjamin Jowett Quotes

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.

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

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.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

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.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.

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.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

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

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

Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe.

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

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"! (Institutio III.2.3)

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.

The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.

Uncertainty is a very good thing: it's the beginning of an investigation, and the investigation should never end.

The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.