Samuel R. Delany Quotes

Which country is real, mine or the teacher's? My wish is that we might progressively lose our confidence in what we think we believe and the things we consider stable and secure, in order to remind ourselves of the infinite number of things still waiting to be discovered.

The truth does not need to be defended.

Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

Nothing's ever real until it's real.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone.

A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.

Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not.

We can't assume what we don't believe.

A thing that nobody believes cannot be proved too often.

The first lesson about trusting your senses is: don't. Just because you believe something to be true, just because you know it's true, that doesn't mean it is true.

Experience alone can decide on truth.

Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.

Suspecting and knowing are not the same.

You do not believe, you only believe that you believe.

...and when is enough proof enough?

We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion

Where doubt there truth is - 'tis her shadow.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.

A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.