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The young, eager search for truth among the learned often ends in doubts, not certainties.

Omar Khayyam · Rubaiate · 1120 · catrenul 271 minute readpublic domain
Myself when young did eagerly frequent / Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument / About it and aboutOmar Khayyam · Rubaiate · 1120 · catrenul 27

Whoever chases certainty among the learned comes home with doubts.

The verse describes a familiar intellectual biography: the young person runs from one authority to another, hears arguments on every side, and finds they contradict each other. The mechanism is known to anyone who has studied seriously: the more you read, the thinner the confident answers get. A student who begins with firm convictions and finishes university with more questions than before walks exactly this road.

Why it mattersComfort for those losing their certainties: doubt is a sign you thought seriously, not a failure.

YoungcertaintiesRuns amongthe learnedContradictoryargumentsDoubt
The path of study: from certainty to doubt

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