Conor Oberst Quotes

I think of myself as a positive agnostic. I don't know, therefore I'm open. I don't know, therefore I'm interested.

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...

I believe in everything - a little bit.

I respect and believe skeptics.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

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.

Doubt . . . impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door. Indeed, . . . faith anesthetizes the desire to seek knowledge and truth.

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

Doubting charms me not less than knowledge.

The job is to ask questions-it always was-and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

The older I get, the less I know. By that I mean the less I am sure of. I view people with strong opinions on the big stuff with distrust. I don't think we should have certain certainties on faith and politics; I think we should be open-minded.

I love to doubt as well as know.

I have always been the kid who's asked 'Why?' In my faith, you're just supposed to have faith. But I was always like 'why?'

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

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

Knowing is higher than believing. Knowing means that there is NO doubt.

Carl did not want to believe. He wanted to know.

My skepticism is strong, but my curiosity is stronger.

I think you need to have a healthy sense of doubt because I think doubt leads to inquiry.

I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

Atheism was natural enough, but heresy seemed strange. For, surely, if one could believe anything, one could believe everything.

I hate doubt, yet I am certain that doubt is the only way to approach anything worth believing in.