Charles Spurgeon Quotes

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.

Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

I love to doubt as well as know.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

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 origin of wisdom.

There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

Believing in everything looks a lot like believing in nothing.

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

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

That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

Credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.

Skepticism is the first step towards truth.

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.

Conventional wisdom is not always wrong.

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.