Jane Hirshfield Quotes

... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.

Maybe I don't believe things myself, as well. Truth is such a transient thing.

Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

Which country is real, mine or the teacher's? My wish is that we might progressively lose our confidence in what we think we believe and the things we consider stable and secure, in order to remind ourselves of the infinite number of things still waiting to be discovered.

Where doubt there truth is - 'tis her shadow.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I never know how much of what I say is true.

I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized.

There's a sense in all my novels that nothing is certain.

Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not.

No one will ever know the complete truth.

In my long experience, one thing I know is that truth is elusive.

What, then is truth?... Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.

Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false).

You’re here,” I continued. “At least you look as if you’re here. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe it’s just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you’ve hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys. Do you think we can go on like this forever?

I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.

We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal

Do you call it doubting to write down on a piece of paper that you doubt? If so, doubt has nothing to do with any serious business. But do not make believe; if pedantry has not eaten all the reality out of you, recognize, as you must, that there is much that you do not doubt, in the least. Now that which you do not at all doubt, you must and do regard as infallible, absolute truth.