Sigmund Freud Quotes

In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three territories,--the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt.

True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.

I've gone through most of my life not believing anything. Either I know or I don't know, or I think.

But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.

Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.

When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

We cannot begin with complete doubt.

A picture can be an answer as well as a question but if you can't answer your question try to question your question... There can be questions without answers but no answers without questions.

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine.

Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.

I do not feign hypotheses.

Never believe what you cannot doubt.

The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.

Start out understanding religion by saying everything is possibly wrong... As soon as you do that, you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from.

Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking.

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.

Only the most uncritical minds are free from doubt.

Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified.

Certainty is a closing of the mind. To create something new you must have doubt.

Between certainty and the real, an ancient enmity.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

To philosophize is to doubt.

I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement.

It is not by believing but by doubting that one can attain to the truth, which is ever changing form and condition.