Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

With knowledge grows doubt.

The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.

Doubting pleases me no less than knowing

Doubt grows with knowledge.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

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 demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.

To know much is often the cause of doubting more.

At the very smallest wheel of our reasoning it is possible for a handful of questions to break the bank of our answers.

It is at the cross-roads that skepticism is born, not in a hermitage.

Not all questions are answered, but fortunately some answers are questioned.

There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

I love to doubt as well as know.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

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.

A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.

My skepticism is strong, but my curiosity is stronger.

I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.

I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake.

He who replies to words of doubt doth put the light of knowledge out.

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

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.