We cannot help thinking that Goethe showed lack of courage when he said:
“I will listen to any one’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to
yourself, I have plenty of my own!” It seems to us that only a coward is
afraid of doubts. If our convictions are false is it not better to know it
and correct them? Doubt is the way to truth. It is the attitude of the
mind that wants to know things just as they are. They who are unwilling to
be deceived are the ones to doubt, to inquire. Let us hear all the doubts
of the world, for they are knocks at the door of knowledge. To accept
without question is to be the willing dupe of imposition.
The doubter is the safe man; the man who can be depended upon. He does not
build upon a foundation of guesswork, and the structure he erects will
stand. Let us not fear doubt, but rather fear to have falsehood passed for
truth.
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There is no authority that can be quoted against a man but the authority
of some other man.
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Nine times out of ten the man who declares that God is tender to the
sparrow that falls is not the man to buy a winter’s coal for a poor widow.