SKEPTICISM QUOTES III

quotations about skepticism

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

ISAAC ASIMOV

The Roving Mind

Tags: Isaac Asimov


If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.

ANN DRUYAN

Editor's Introduction, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God


A skeptic is one who knows too much for a fool, and too little for a wise man.

H. W. SHAW

attributed, Day's Collacon


Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow.

ROMAIN ROLLAND

attributed, The Wisdom of the Great

Tags: Romain Rolland


Absolute relativism, which is neither more nor less than skepticism, in the most modern sense of the term, is the supreme triumph of the reasoning reason.

MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO

The Tragic Sense of Life

Tags: Miguel de Unamuno


Liquid promises drain
With your lies
Blaming others before
Yourself
Forgotten disposable fool
Caught in a fictional
Daydream
Skeptic, unbeliever
Taking everything for granted
Shallow

INTO ETERNITY

"Shallow"


He walks with angels in his picket
They tell him what to do
His shopping cart's filled with newspapers
And thirty-six discarded shoes
He's met with heavy skepticism
Messiahs don't come everyday
Shopping cart Jesus
He wants to talk to you

58

"Shopping Cart Jesus"


The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."

H. L. MENCKEN

Minority Report

Tags: H. L. Mencken


Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

ERIC HOFFER

The Passionate State of Mind and Other Aphorisms

Tags: Eric Hoffer


The skeptics never make it through the static.

LESS THAN JAKE

"Jump"


Suffer not your faith to be shaken by the sophistries of skeptics.

S. CLARKE

attributed, Day's Collacon


Apathy increasing where skepticism once prevailed
Ignorance covering the youth like a bride's white veil

DANCE HALL CRASHERS

"Blind Leading the Blind"


Skeptics are generally ready to believe anything, provided is it only sufficiently improbable; it is at matters of fact that such people stumble.

KARL LUDWIG VON KNEBEL

attributed, Day's Collacon


Along the master plan
Heading to the barricade
Diversity or skepticism falls into my brain
I rubbed it with the bow
And I listened to the string
Then the whisper of the end
Slipped into the dialogue

HIATUS

"Ghost in the Rain"


Skeptics are apt to be superstitious; the moral restlessness of perpetual doubt often superinduces nervous timidity.

GEORGE BANCROFT

History of the United States of America


Skepticism is the first step towards truth.

DENIS DIDEROT

Pensées philosophiques

Tags: Denis Diderot


Skeptics, like dolphins, change when dying.

LADY BLESSINGTON

"Desultory Thoughts and Reflections by the Countess of Blessington", The Literary World


All forms of modern skepticism have a common philosophical foundation. Their philosophy denies that we can know any thing except that which we learn through the senses directly, or through conclusions deduced from the senses. We know that there is a sun because we see it; we know approximately its weight and its distance from the earth, because by long processes of reasoning we reach conclusions on those subjects from phenomena which we do see. What we do not thus see, or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell, or thus conclude from what we have seen, or heard, or touched, or tasted, or smelled, is said to belong to the unknown and unknowable. This is the basis of modern skepticism. It is the basis, too, of much of modern theology. It is the secret of the " scientific method." By this method we conclude the existence of an invisible God from the phenomena of life exactly as we conclude the existence of an invisible ether from the phenomena of light. But the God thus deduced is like the ether, only an hypothesis. It is quite legitimate to offer a new hypothesis; and the scientist will be as ready to accept one hypothesis as another, provided it accounts for the phenomena. This philosophy, pursued to its legitimate and logical conclusion, issues in the denial that man is a religious being; or possesses a spiritual nature; or is any thing more than a highly organized and developed animal.

LYMAN ABBOTT

A Study in Human Nature

Tags: Lyman Abbott


Skepticism, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. Skepticism is the father of freedom. It is like the pry that holds open the door for truth to slip in.

GERRY SPENCE

Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life


Skepticism is the beginning of failure.

LAZYBOY

"This Is the Truth"