Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt brings into question some notion of a perceived "reality", and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness. Some definitions of doubt emphasize the state in which the mind remains suspended between two contradictory propositions and unable to assent to either of them (compare paradox).
The concept of doubt covers a range of phenomena: one can characterise both deliberate questioning of uncertainties and an emotional state of indecision as "doubt".
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Famous quotes containing the word doubt:
“Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.”
—Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974)
“Although my royal rank causes me to doubt whether my kingdom is not more sought after than myself, yet I understand that you have found other graces in me.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)