Oswald Chambers Quotes

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.

I think doubt is a very healthy way to live.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

I think you need to have a healthy sense of doubt because I think doubt leads to inquiry.

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

If you haven't doubted, you probably haven't thought very hard about what you believe.

Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable.

To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.

The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.

The job is to ask questions-it always was-and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.

I love to doubt as well as know.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

My only weapon is the question.

In philosophy you're never 100% sure. You're always undermining what you think you know. That's always been my philosophy and my intellectual ethos.

I think it's very important to keep in the back of your mind: 'What if I'm wrong?'

Skepticism is provisional, even if it lasts a lifetime.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...