Quotes & Sayings About Doubting Life

When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, "You can do this. You've got what it takes." The other sounds like my mother-in-law. — Carla H. Krueger

I wished to test your love for me, and it did not bear the test. You used to tell me that you drew the very breath of life but for me and love of me."
"And to prove that love, you demanded that I should forfeit mine honor," he said ... "that I should accept without murmur of question, as a dumb and submissive slave, every action of my mistress. My hear overflowing with love and passion, I asked for no explanation-I waited for one, not doubting, only hoping. — Emmuska Orczy

I began to turn my body, but he held me and laid me back onto the bed, insistently, kissing my breasts but not lingering, kissing a line down my stomach and lower. "You want me to prove to you that I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, Roses. Is that true, aye? Because I just can't take this anymore."
I gasped as he licked into my sensitive flesh, wetting me with his soft strokes, speaking soft words against my skin. "If you insist on doubting me, Roses, if you absolutely insist on breaking down every defense that I have with your tears and your plush, wet, ripe beauty, then that's what I'll have to do, lass. Is that what you want from me? Proof?"
I could only sigh a soft response, already falling, burning, wanting too much. — Juliette Miller

Praying and then doubting whether it will be heard or manifested is really doubting the Universe's power. — Maddy Malhotra

If you doubted your fears instead of doubting your dreams, imagine how much in life you'd accomplish. — Joel Brown

The great lesson here taught is for all time. Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, "Go forward." We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit. Those who defer obedience till every shadow of uncertainty disappears and there remains no risk of failure or defeat, will never obey at all. Unbelief whispers, "Let us wait till the obstructions are removed, and we can see our way clearly;" but faith courageously urges an advance, hoping all things, believing all things. — Ellen G. White

He had never been a believer in systems - his was an overweening faith that life lay in the contradictions, not in the formulae, in the doubting, not the certainties, the needs rather than the riches - and political parties seemed to him little more than artificial structures designed to save man from his loneliness. — Stacy Schiff

Always doubting and questioning everything strikes me as a very miserable way to live. — Marty Rubin

Sometimes doubting your first thought, will cost you more for going with your second thought. — Pontius Joseph

Occupy your thoughts with purpose and you will be so busy pursuing a meaningful future there will be no time for doubt, chaos and disappointment. — Carlos Wallace

All people share doubts. The lingering question that eventually worms it way into all thinking people's brain is how to live splendidly and how to die without remorse and regret. — Kilroy J. Oldster

How do we distinguish between the legitimate skepticism of those who scoffed at cold fusion, and the stifling dogma of the seventeenthcentury clergymen who, doubting Galileo's claim that the earth was not the center of the solar system, put him under house arrest for the last eight years of his life? In part, the answer lies in the distinction between skepticism and closed-mindedness. Many scientists who were skeptical about cold fusion nevertheless tried to replicate the reported phenomenon in their own labs; Galileo's critics refused to look at the pertinent data. — Thomas Gilovich

You don't know that." He made a face, doubting this. "You don't. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"Maybe," he said. "But even that's not long to be the person she deserves. — Sarah Dessen

Never cease doubting. When the doubts stop it is because you have stopped journeying. — Paulo Coelho

We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree - deeply rooted to withstand all life's upheavals. — Dodinsky

We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality. We sleep in a long reproachful dust against ourselves. We are full to the gorge with our own names for misery. Life, the pastures in which the night feeds and prunes the cud that nourishes us to despair. Life, the permission to know death. We were created that the earth might be made sensible of her inhuman taste; and love that the body might be so dear that even the earth should roar with it. Yes, we who are full to the gorge with misery should look well around, doubting everything seen, done, spoken, precisely because we have a word for it, and not its alchemy. — Djuna Barnes

Expressing doubt is how we begin a journey to discover essential truths. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Normality may lie in being a selectively deaf self-righteous victim of your own cognitive dissonance...but then again...who wants to be an open minded but self-doubting fence-sitter paralyzed by internal conflict? life eh? — Tweedy Peanut

Whether deliberately, unconsciously or accidentally, she seems to have composed her own life so that its fitful, rudderless, and self-doubting first half was alchemized into gold when the austere bluestocking became the fallen woman. — Carolyn Heilbrun

Sometime you have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting. Have faith that things will work out, maybe not how you planned, but just how it's meant to be. — Drake

Anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself. — Milan Kundera

I am not frightened of my beliefs. If there is a God who is threatening me with damnation because I don't believe in Him, so be it. I've lived my life in conscience, and I will suffer damnation willingly in conscience against a tyrannical God who would damn me because, on the basis of the intelligence He gave me, I have come to a conclusion doubting His existence, and I will continue to be a skeptic all of my life. — Alan M. Dershowitz

You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."
"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."
"You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It's not adviseable to always go around doubting others all the time. However, it is logical. — Carroll Bryant

The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life. — Larry Ellison

In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes. — Matsuo Basho

What is the best thing about people doubting your potential?
The pleasure of proving them wrong. — Ameya Agrawal

It isn't necessarily easier if you know what it is you're meant to do
but at least you don't waste time in questioning or doubting. If you're honest
well, that isn't necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you're honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you're less likely to feel that you've wasted your life, doing the wrong thing. — Diana Gabaldon

Often, when we are in trouble, or doubting, or struggling, we rely on others to carry us to God. Just as often we must do the carrying, to help friends who are struggling. This is one of the many benefits of organized religion, as we all need others to help us find God. Even though we may disagree with others and find life in a community occasionally annoying and sometimes scandalous, we need others, because the community is one way that we are carried to God, especially when we are too weak to walk to God on our own. But I wondered about the paralyzed man. He may have felt shame for his illness or for being unable to support himself. Maybe his friends carried him in spite of himself. Sometimes when we are too embarrassed to approach God, someone must bring us there - even drag us there. Many times when I am discouraged, demoralized, or angry at God, it is friends who remind me of God's great love and who carry me to God. We cannot come to God without others. — James Martin

Because of this false idea, they devised an aesthetic belief in making the exterior of an object a reflection of the practical functions of the interior and of the constructive idea. Yet these analyses of utility and necessity that, according to their beliefs, should be the basis for the construction of any object created by humanity become immediately absurd once we analyze all the object being manufactured today. A fork or a bed cannot come to be considered necessary for humanity's life and health, and yet retain a relative value.
They are 'learned necessities.' Modern human beings are suffocating under necessities like televisions, refrigerators, etc. And in the process making it impossible to live their real lives. Obviously we are not against modern technology, but we are against any notion of the absolute necessity of objects, to the point even of doubting their real utility.'
Asger Jorn — Tom McDonough

Almost all the progress ever made in human thought has been made by the Doubting Thomas's, the questioners, the challengers, the show-me crowd. — Dale Carnegie

Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat. — Dan B. Allender

Although this was not a comforting point of view, he did not reject it, because it coincided with one of his basic beliefs: that a man must at all costs keep some part of himself outside and beyond life. If he should ever for an instant cease doubting, accept wholly the truth of what his senses conveyed to him, he would be dislodged from the solid ground to which he clung and swept along with the current, having lost all objective sense, totally involved with existence. — Paul Bowles

I think that life is a bit like a biscuit that you only get one bite at. The best thing is to just go for it. If you feel an inclination for something, just go for it. Life is too short to muck about doubting yourself. It's better to try and just shore yourself up with some sort of confidence. And get on with it! — Georgia Byng

When you're struggling, or doubting, or fearful, or feel as if your foundation has crumbled, don't ever underestimate the power of praise! Don't just think about it. Do it. Pull out all the stops. Make praise your first response to fearful situations in your life. God wants us to praise Him at all times, but especially when we are afraid or discouraged. When we do, not only will He take away our fear, but He will also give us joy (Psalm 34:1-5). Fear will tell you things that are not God's truth for your life. Fear denies that God's presence is powerful and fully active in your life. It cancels all hope and faith in God's desire to work in your behalf. But the truth is that faith, prayer, praise, and the Word of God will conquer your every fear. — Stormie O'martian

Doubt gets a bad rap. Doubting doesn't mean you've stopped believing, but that you've started thinking. Sheep doubt nothing. Chances are you'll get further in life by questioning things than by living like something that ends up as dinner and a sweater. — Amy Alkon

I hate it, all of this," I screamed, my voice breaking. "I even hate him, even him." A huge sob came up from my chest.
And I did, right then. I hated you for everything; for making me feel so helpless everywhere I went, for making me lose control. I hated you for all the emotions in my head, for the confusion ... for the way I was suddenly doubting everything. I hated you for turning my life upside down and then smashing it into shards. I hated you for making me stand with a whirring fan in my hand, screaming at my mum.
But I hated you for something else, too. Right then, and at every moment since you'd left me, all I could think about was you. I wanted you in that apartment. I wanted your arms around me, your face close to mine. I wanted your smell. And I knew I couldn't-shouldn't-have it. That's what I hated most. The uncertainty of you. You'd kidnapped me, put my life in danger ... but I loved you, too. Or thought I did. None of it made sense. — Lucy Christopher

By doubting we come at truth. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Shakespeare 'never owned a book,' a writer for the New York Times gravely informed readers in one doubting article in 2002. The statement cannot actually be refuted, for we know nothing about his incidental possessions. But the writer might just as well have suggested that Shakespeare never owned a pair of shoes or pants. For all the evidence tells us, he spent his life naked from the waist down, as well as bookless, but it is probably that what is lacking is the evidence, not the apparel or the books. — Bill Bryson

Is this life?'Alice wondered, not doubting that the question was original and all her own. 'Is it life to spend your time imagining things that aren't so, and never will be? Beautiful things happen to other people; why should I be the only one they never can happen to? — Booth Tarkington

I readan article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children tobe skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything ... I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax. — Brenda Ueland

I was full of doubts, of course, not a particularly bad way to be, but I didn't know that. Doubting so much made me suffer, but I could have saved myself the anxiety and simply doubted, without any problem. I was unaware that to doubt is to write. Marguerite Duras would say so in 1995, toward the end of her days: I can say what I like, but I shall never know why people write and how it is people don't write. In life, there comes a time, and I think it is total, that we cannot escape, where we doubt everything: that doubt is writing. — Enrique Vila-Matas

If thinking minds, questioning minds, doubting minds, are talking about faith, their whole life will become fake. — Jaggi Vasudev

Success on a cosmic level completely eludes me. I'm deeply suspicious of things being too good. It's part of my superstition, I think, to generate pain in order to give the illusion of gain. I'm not saying I reject success, but honestly, I don't quite know how to deal with it. It's an old feeling: As soon as you have the thing you've been going after all your life, that reasonable degree of security, you start kicking against it, doubting it. — Hugh Laurie

LXXV
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away. — William Shakespeare

A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer:
'I promise thee, this day thou shalt be
With Me in Paradise'
(Luke 23:43)
It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour. — Fulton J. Sheen

At times one wanders, doubting the facts, even when one has discovered the secrets of the good life. To be sure, my solution is not the ideal.
But when you don't like your own life, when you know that you must change lives, you don't have any choice, do you? What can one do to become
another?Impossible. One would have to cease being anyone, forget oneself for someone else, at least once.But how? Don't bear down too hard on me.
I am like that old beggar who wouldn't let go of my hand one day on a cafe terrace: Oh, sir,he said, its not just that I am no good, but you lose
track of the light.Yes, we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves. — Albert Camus

If God has given His Son to die for us, let us beware of doubting His kindness and love in any painful providence of our daily life. — J.C. Ryle

Many life-affirming questions lead to an endless spool of disconcerting propositions and contradictory conclusions, and even more troubling, some queries prove unanswerable. — Kilroy J. Oldster

When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj