Jean Rostand Quotes

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

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

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

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.

We'd all like to be certain of what we know, but I think the most important question is to ask yourself do you really know what you know?

At times, we need to stop and rethink everything. Our entire history is made up of people who were sure they knew the truth yet forgot that the truth has an annoying tendency to change on occasion without us noticing it.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

We don't need to invest all of our faith in every concept, in every symbol, in every opinion that forms the totality of our knowledge. Faith means to believe in something 100% without a doubt, and to doubt our own knowledge can seem like the most frightening thing that can happen to us.

The surest way to lose truth is to pretend that one already wholly possesses it.

The test of truth in life is not whether we can remember what we learned in school, but whether we are prepared for change.

Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?

Better to trust the man who is frequently in error than the one who is never in doubt.

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

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

Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them.

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.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

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

If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that are not so

Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right

Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.