Skepticism Quotes · Page 12

“It is far harder to make a believer into a skeptic than to make a skeptic into a believer.”

— Mike Klepper

“Prayers, maybe most of them, go unanswered. You two, you’re too young, too fortunate, to know that. You will. Prayers go unanswered.…

— Edward J. Santella

“Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.”

— Immanuel Kant

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

— Denis Diderot

Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human…

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It's frightening that skepticism has to be a movement, because you're just arguing that reality is reality. What a waste of energy,…

— Graham Linehan

One needs the invented, the spontaneous, the impromptu for ritual. Skepticism, that grain of salt, is inappropriate.

— E. M. Broner

“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them…

— George Carlin

“don’t confuse scepticism as an attitude, or a method, with scepticism as a philosophy. Socrates was sceptical in temperament, and his method…

— Peter Kreeft

“Truth is for earnest seekers, not for those of idle curiosity. It is easy to believe when one sees; there is nothing…

— Paramahansa Yogananda

“Skepticism is certainly a beneficial tool, to the extent that it yields a dialectic of ideas that can progress toward empirical resolution…

— Jaak Panksepp

I just feel that if I'm English and writing about an American president, I have got to have someone on my side…

— Peter Morgan

General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in…

— William James

... skepticism about past returns is crucial. The truth is, much as you may wish you could know which funds will be…

— Bethany McLean

The implication was that if you had any skepticism whatsoever, you were anti-science. I think there's a difference between having skepticism about…

— Marianne Williamson

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure…

— Bertrand Russell

“Being a fool the right way means not being the kind of fool who uncritically accepts so-called real-world truths that attempt to…

— Sol Luckman

Infidelity and skepticism abound everywhere. In one form or another they are to be found in every rank and class of society.…

— J. C. Ryle

As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum…

— Richard Rorty

All that the posture of skepticism accomplishes is to freeze the ego in an ignorantist poverty that never stretches or diversifies its…

— Kenny Smith

“Believers in psychic phenomena... appear to have won a decisive victory and virtually silenced opposition… This victory is the result of careful…

— George R. Price

“The Legend of Robert Halsey This article examines the criminal conviction of Robert Halsey for sexually abusing two young boys on his…

— Ross Cheit

“Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in “contact” with extraterrestrials. I am invited to “ask them anything.” And so…

— Carl Sagan

“I wanted to cast doubt on the step he was about to take, to help him see there are other ways to…

— Mark Lilla

“scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill”

— George Eliot

“[T]he longer you stay skeptical, doubtful, intellectually uncomfortable, the better it is for you.”

— Joseph Brodsky

“if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe…

— Tim Krieder

One could argue [Bob] Corker has been more supportive of [Donald] Trump's foreign policy skepticism of the establishment than anybody else.

— Chuck Todd

The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.

— David Hume

“The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of scepticism…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is…

— Isaac Asimov

The majority of people dismiss those things that lie beyond the bounds of their own understanding as absurd and not worth thinking…

— Anonymous

I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.

— Michael Hastings

“They were completely lacking in the sort of healthy skepticism needed to attain any degree of wisdom.”

— Haruki Murakami

“Being postmodern, however, is about being complicit rather than virtuous, it is about approaching categories like Good and Evil with a certain…

— Veronica Hollinger

Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've learned that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

— Anonymous

I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of…

— Sam Harris

Campaign may invite a certain skepticism about democracy, but it will surely restore your faith in cinema verite.

— A. O. Scott

There's a very healthy tradition in America of skepticism of centralized power. If we ever lose the skepticism of centralized power, we'll…

— Howard Fineman