269 Skepticism Quotes

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them.

Caution! Be very careful of false, meaningless, self-contradictory, and not even very funny warnings, like this one.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

I read a book lately by Nietzsche and he says religion is just to dull the senses of the people. I agree.

David Brin is a technological determinist. He thinks that we understand the trend and we need to hop on it. I don't have any such illusions.

A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

Lesson number one in trying to develop the ability of independent thought: Understand that EVERYTHING the government says has the potential to be lies and deception. You can believe it's the truth only after you question, exhaust every avenue, and find that their story checks out. If you're a patriot, it's your duty to always question your government anyway, at every turn. A patriot is loyal to his country and his countrymen, not his government.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.

I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.

Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.

Sirs, I have tested your machine. It adds a new terror to life and makes death a long-felt want.

People still laugh at me in politics, they think I won't make it; but I think I will, after Harold Wilson, I will be your next Chancellor to become Prime Minister.

He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

Pessimism: A valuable protection against quackery.

What has six balls and screws Texans? The Texas Lottery.

Some books are lies frae end to end.

If you don't believe your salmon is wild, ask it to fetch your newspaper and see what happens.

Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.

It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally, without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles.

The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth - never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.

Just because you read it in a magazine Or see it on the TV screen Don't make it factual ~ Tabloid Junkie

You speak in theological terms, and yet I thought you were an unbeliever' theology is a joke to me. Amusing! I laugh at it. I can tell amusing stories about theology, to jest with believers

Why am I so certain of my doubt? What? why is doubt the one thing we're never skeptical of? We question other peoples' beliefs, and the more sure they are the more we doubt them. But it never occurs to us to doubt our own doubt. Question our own questions. We think our questions are answers

Why give you answers you wont believe? Well, answers I don't believe would be a step forward

It cannot be precisely ascertained in what degree Jesus Christ accommodated his doctrines to the opinions of his auditors; or in what degree he really said all that he is related to have said. He has left no written record of himself, and we are compelled to judge from the imperfect and obscure information which his biographers (persons certainly of very undisciplined and undiscriminating minds) have transmitted to posterity. These writers (our only guides) impute sentiments to Jesus Christ which flatly contradict each other. They represent him as narrow, superstitious, and exquisitely vindictive and malicious. They insert, in the midst of a strain of impassioned eloquence or sagest exhortation, a sentiment only remarkable for its naked and drivelling folly. But it is not difficult to distinguish the inventions by which these historians have filled up the interstices of tradition, or corrupted the simplicity of truth, from the real character of their rude amazement. They have left sufficiently clear indications of the genuine character of Jesus Christ to rescue it for ever from the imputations cast upon it by their ignorance and fanaticism. We discover that he is the enemy of oppression and of falsehood; that he is the advocate of equal justice; that he is neither disposed to sanction bloodshed nor deceit, under whatsoever pretences their practice may be vindicated. We discover that he was a man of meek and majestic demeanour, calm in danger; of natural and simple thought and habits; beloved to adoration by his adherents; unmoved, solemn, and severe.

'All government studies show cocaine to be harmless, non-addictive, and benign.', spoken at the University of New Mexico in 1968

Keep your mind on your money/enroll in school/And as the years pass by/you can show them fools

Is it customary for dead people to crank call?

Well, another program proving absolutely nothing. Proving that UFOs don't exist, that there isn't an extra dimension and there are no flying saucers or little green men. Yes, another Coast to Coast AM that can't prove a freaking thing.

(referring to Cupids) The small babies that can hurt you? I don't know, I'm not familiar.

Hey did your [Iraq soldier] husband say he bayoneted nobody? ... It's a pretty sure bet he almost bayonetted someone.

And I suppose you're an expert from watching F-Troop, I gather?

Credulity kills.

Cum grano salis.

And this is medicine?

This isn't all true.

'The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.'

There are three kinds of lies - Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

When war reaches such dimensions as to involve the whole nation, and when the people at its conclusion find they have gained nothing but only observe widespread calamity around them, they are inclined to become more sceptical and desire to investigate the foundations of the arguments which inspired their patriotism, inflamed their passions, and prepared them to offer the supreme sacrifice. They are curious to know why the ostensible objects for which they fought have none of them been attained, more especially if they are the victors.

Are you for real?

'It is like a forced idea and I wonder why they are pushing for it now?'

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.'

I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths [...] I can see much to admire in all religions [...] But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarian and we're sceptical.

It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.

Never take anything for granted.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

And I'll tell you something too. That's starting to annoy me about UFOs, the fact that they cross galaxies or universes to visit us, and always end up in places like : Fyffe fucking Alabama. Maybe these aren't super-intelligent beings, you know what I mean?

All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so - they're stupid.

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

I say it because I don't believe.

Everything good, fine or great they do is first of all an argument against the skeptic inside them.

The old lady knelt, saying her 'Hail Mary'; She didn't believe - but among Catholics even the sceptical are courteous.

A likely story - and probably true.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

He bought a book of Iudicial Astrology out of a curiosity to see what there was in that science & read in it till he came to a figure of the heavens which he could not understand for want of being acquainted with Trigonometry, & to understand the ground of that bought an English Euclid with an Index of all the problems at the end of it & only turned to two or three which he thought necessary for his purpose & read nothing but the titles of them finding them so easy & self evident that he wondered any body would be at the pains of writing a demonstration of them & laid Euclid aside as a trifling book, & was soon convinced of the vanity & emptiness of the pretended science of Iudicial astrology.

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. 'There's a unicorn in the garden,' he said. 'Eating roses.' She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. 'The unicorn is a mythical beast,' she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips.

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.

Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.

Popes have committed too many absurdities to create a belief in their infallibility.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

So you think the police foresees and knows everything. The police invents more than it discovers.

It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil.

My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.

He trusted neither of them as far as he could spit, and he was a poor spitter, lacking both distance and control.

I consider that of all the dashed silly, drivelling ideas I ever heard in my puff this is the most blithering and futile. It won't work. Not a chance.

I goggled. Her words did not appear to make sense. They seemed the mere aimless vapouring of an aunt who has been sitting out in the sun without a hat.

It's only about once in a lifetime that anything sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you don't want people taking all the colour out of it. I remember at school having to read that stuff where that chap, Othello, tells the girl what a hell of a time he'd been having among the cannibals and what not. Well, imagine his feelings if, after he had described some particularly sticky passage with a cannibal chief and was waiting for the awestruck 'Oh-h! Not really?', she had said that the whole thing had no doubt been greatly exaggerated and that the man had probably really been a prominent local vegetarian.

That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.

I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, 'I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.' That's just a long-winded religious way to say, 'shut up,' or another two words that the FCC likes less.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

Play the game, but don't believe in it.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Archie Goodwin, before stating one of the second kind, chapter 9: There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

It's been suggested that if the super-naturalists really had the powers they claim, they'd win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science. Either way, why are they wasting their talents doing party turns on television? By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.