Peter Jennings Quotes

if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.

What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.

Skepticism may undermine beliefs, but never belief.

Faith is a wonderful thing, but doubt gets you an education.

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

Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.

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.

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt.

What do I believe? I do not know; I do not know; I do not know.

If you haven't doubted, you probably haven't thought very hard about what you believe.

Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.

I have beliefs, of course, like everyone-but I don't always believe in them.

To doubt has more of faith ... than that blank negation of all such thoughts and feelings which is the lot of the herd of church-and-meeting trotters.

Let those who believe, believe. Let those who doubt, doubt.

Not believing has a sickness which is believing a little.

If you call yourself a non-believer, you're referring to disbelief in something, and you're acknowledging that there is something to believe in or not.

I think doubt is a very healthy way to live.

William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Belief is tricky because left to its own devices, it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.

I wouldn't like to be a non-believer in anything.

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

The word 'religion' is only a label. What lies behind that, the most important thing of all, is the word 'faith'. You either have faith, or you don't have faith, or you have degrees of faith - and if you have degrees of faith, then you become agnostic. You're kind of in-between, or you're on the fence.

Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.