Aldo Leopold Quotes

I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It.

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

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

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

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

In philosophy you're never 100% sure. You're always undermining what you think you know. That's always been my philosophy and my intellectual ethos.

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.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

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

Skepticism may undermine beliefs, but never belief.

When in doubt, doubt the doubt!

I would say that I'm 98 percent skeptical, but the other 2 percent [is] open for the possibility of things.

This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, we cannot retreat from it anymore.

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun.

Doubt was much more energy efficient than conviction.

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.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.

Doubt is clearly a value in science. It is important to doubt and that the doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of great value.

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.

I'm not going to tell a person how to think, don't believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don't be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let's see if you can still find the footing.

I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire.

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.