Laurence Sterne Quotes

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

I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

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.

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

'UFO's' attitude toward the subject is very similar to mine. It's not an advocacy; its philosophy is more 'I want to believe this, but I want it proved.'

The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.

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.

By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.

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.

To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.

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.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

Skepticism is the first step towards truth.

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

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?

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

For dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true

By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth.

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.