Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Doubt
Who never doubted, never half believed.
Where doubt there truth is—’tis her shadow.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Country Town.
He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.
Cowper—Conversation. L. 121.
Non menno che saper, dubbiar m’aggrata.
Doubting charms me not less than knowledge.
Dante—Inferno. XI. 93.
Uncertain ways unsafest are,
And doubt a greater mischief than despair.
Sir John Denham—Cooper’s Hill. L. 399.
Vous ne prouvez que trop que chercher à connaître
N’est souvent qu’ apprendre à douter.
You prove but too clearly that seeking to know
Is too frequently learning to doubt.
Mme. Deshoulières.
Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.
F. R. Havergal—Royal Bounty. The Imagination of the Thoughts of the Heart.
When in doubt, win the trick.
Hoyle—Twenty-four rules for Learners. Rule 12.
He who dallies is a dastard,
He who doubts is damned.
Attributed to George McDuffle, of South Carolina, during the “Nullification” period. Used by James Hamilton, when Governor of South Carolina. Also quoted by J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, in Congress, Feb. 1877, during the Hayes-Tilden dispute. Appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal (Col. Watterson, editor), during same dispute. (See also Romans. XIV. 23.)
But the gods are dead—
Ay, Zeus is dead, and all the gods but Doubt,
And doubt is brother devil to Despair!
John Boyle O’Reilly—Prometheus. Christ.
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto V. L. 73.
Fain would I but dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not for pleasure when I play not.
Sir Walter Raleigh—A Lover’s Verses.
And he that doubteth is damned if he eat.
Romans. XIV. 23.
But yet, madam—
I do not like, “but yet,” it does allay
The good precedence; fie upon “but yet!”
“But yet” is a gaoler to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 49.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 56.
But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 24.
Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 77.
To be once in doubt
Is once to be resolv’d.
Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 179.
No hinge nor loop,
To hang a doubt on.
Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 366.
Modest doubt is call’d
The beacon of the wise.
Troilus and Cressida. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 15.
To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.
Stanislaus (King of Poland)—Maxims and Moral Sentences. No. 61.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. XCV. St. 3.
I follow my law and fulfil it all duly—and look! when your doubt runneth high—
North points to the needle!
Edith M. Thomas—The Compass.