Voltaire Quotes

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

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

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

Skepticism may undermine beliefs, but never belief.

It is easier to believe than to doubt.

Faith is Doubt.

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

Religion deals in certainties and philosophy deals more in un-answered questions.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

Faith is the effort to believe what your common sense tells you is not true.

There is more truth in honest doubt, Believe me, than in all the creeds.

In this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt.

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's not there why should you believe in it?

One percent doubt is zero percent faith.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.

Trust resides squarely between faith and doubt.

I do not believe in Belief.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief. Doubt.

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