Doubt

If at first you doubt, doubt again.
~ William Bennett

He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
~ William Blake, The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

If the Sun and Moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
~ William Blake, The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

When in doubt wear red.
~ Bill Blass, (31 December 1982)

Who breaks his faith, no faith is held with him.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1621). Second Week, Fourth Day

To be sure, behind the thoughts lurks the after thought -- suppose, after all, the World is right and we are less than men? Suppose this mad impulse within is all wrong, some mock mirage from the untrue?
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

I know not what it is to doubt,
My heart is ever gay.
~ Frederick William Faber, The Will of God.

Of that there is no manner of doubt -- No probable, possible shadow of doubt -- No possible doubt whatever.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, The Gondoliers (1889 opera)

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking (written in 1825)

Doubt is the beginning and the end of our efforts to know.
~ Sir William Hamilton, from Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (1852).

I don't know that there are a lot of great writers among us these days. I rather doubt it.
~ William Heath

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
~ Wilson Mizner

I do not believe that it will always be popular to wear mourning for our friends, unless we feel a little doubtful about where they went.
~ Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye

Your doubts are private detectives employed by your dislike to make a case against change or choice.
~ William Robert Rogers

People are always making rules for themselves and always finding loop-holes.
~ William Rotsler

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act I, scene iv

[T]o be once in doubt,
Is once to be resolved.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act III, scene iii

When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me . . . you cannot give way to such feelings. And I don't.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams (letter to Audrey Wood), The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, vol. i, 1920-1945 (2000).

There is a luxury to having people doubt you. Every time I do something new, people are genuinely surprised.
~ Vanessa Williams, (1998 interview)

Mountains of Whimseys, heaped in his own Brain,
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down
Into Doubt's boundless Sea, where like to drown,
Books bear him up a while, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy.
~ John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester, A Satire Against Mankind (1675).

Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance.
~ William Wirt

[C]eremony and great professing renders friendship as much suspected as it does religion.
~ William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (1674). Act I, scene i