There's something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt.

Mignon McLaughlin was best known for compact, epigrammatic observations on modern life, many of which circulated first in newspaper columns and later in her aphorism collections. This remark belongs to her recurring theme of psychological ambivalence: the way people often carry contrary impulses at once, especially on matters of faith and certainty. Rather than a doctrinal statement, it reads like a mid‑century American columnist’s reflection on the lived experience of belief and unbelief—how skepticism can coexist with longing, and conviction with unease—captured in a deliberately balanced, symmetrical sentence.

The aphorism suggests that conviction is rarely pure: atheists may still feel a human pull toward meaning, transcendence, or hope, while believers often experience private skepticism or moments of uncertainty. By pairing “itching to believe” with “itching to doubt,” McLaughlin treats faith and doubt as reciprocal impulses rather than opposites—each capable of haunting the other. The line also critiques identity-based certainty: calling oneself an atheist or a believer can mask the more complicated interior life where longing and questioning persist. Its significance lies in normalizing ambivalence and portraying doubt not as failure but as a common feature of reflective belief.