There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.
Interpretation
Honest doubt holds more value than unexamined beliefs.
This quote emphasizes the importance of questioning and doubting established beliefs. Tennyson suggests that having faith in the pursuit of truth, even through doubt, is more meaningful than blindly adhering to dogmas or creeds that lack personal conviction and understanding.
In practice
During a debate on philosophy, one might quote this to highlight the value of questioning beliefs.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.
My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that.
The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware.
The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.