I have never doubted the truth of signs, Adso; they are the only things man has with which to orient himself in the world. What I did not understand is the relation among signs . . . I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe. But in imagining an erroneous order you still found something. . . . What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless . . . The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.
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To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
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Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
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Because he did not have time to read every new book in his field, the great Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski used a simple and efficient method of deciding which ones were worth his attention: Upon receiving a new book, he immediately checked the index to see if his name was cited, and how often. The more 'Malinowski' the more compelling the book. No 'Malinowski,' and he doubted the subject of the book was anthropology at all.
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It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma... which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.
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No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor
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Oh I kept the first for another dayYet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if should ever come back.
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Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible, that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity.
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People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
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I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.
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All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them.
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Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
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To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man
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