Skepticism Quotes - Page 13

• There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion.

  Criss Jami

  Believe, Have Faith, Degrees

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.83, Criss Jami

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing shall warp me from the belief that every man is a lover of truth. There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature. The entertainment of the proposition of depravity is the last profligacy and profanation. There is no skepticism, no atheism but that. Could it be received into common belief, suicide would unpeople the planet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Lying, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.181, Graphic Arts Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A rational reaction against irrational excesses and vagaries of skepticism may * * * readily degenerate into the rival folly of credulity.

  William E. Gladstone

  Excess, Rivals, May

  "Homeric Synchronism: An Enquiry Into the Time and Place of Homer". Book by William Ewart Gladstone, 1876.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

  Ronald Reagan

  Mean, Thinking, Government

  7 Copy quote

• It's only fashion that has said the pendulum has swung from extreme skepticism about extraterrestrial life to extreme credulity. The truth is somewhere in between.

  Paul Davies

  Fashion, Truth Is, Said

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sceptics, a kind of nomads, despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without any fixed plan or agreement.

  Immanuel Kant

  Agreement, Land, Numbers

  Immanuel Kant (1915). “Critique of Pure Reason: In Commemoration of the Centenary of Its First Publication”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real essence, the internal qualities, and constitution of even the meanest object, is hid from our view; something there is inevery drop of water, every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding to fathom or comprehend. But it is evidentthat we are influenced by false principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

  George Berkeley

  Real, Thinking, Views

  4 Copy quote

• The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling inhimself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Men

  David Hume (2012). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.221, Courier Corporation

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• [The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail.All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.

  David Hume

  Men, Principles, Action

  David Hume (1788). “An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.162

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  David Hume

  Principles, Employment, Occupation

  David Hume (2013). “Essays and Treatises on Philosophical Subjects”, p.214, Broadview Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Skepticism is a discipline fit to purify the mind of prejudice and render it all the more apt, when the time comes, to believe and to act wisely.

  George Santayana

  Believe, Discipline, Mind

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Scepticism and animal faith. Some meanings of the word "is". Literal and symbolic knowledge. The unknowable”

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The heart must be kept tender and pliable; otherwise agnosticism converts to skepticism. In such a case, the value of apologetics is voided, for apologetics is aimed at persuading doubters, not at refuting the defiant. He who demands a kind of proof that the nature of the case renders impossible, is determined that no possible evidence shall convince him.

  Edward John Carnell

  Heart, Demand, Doubters

  7 Copy quote

• This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.

  Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Country, People, African American

  Source: www.pbs.org

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Party, Communication

  Paul Kurtz (1983). “In defense of secular humanism”, Prometheus Books

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.

  John Cowper Powys

  Attitude, Philosophy, Limitless

  "The Meaning of Culture". Book by John Cowper Powys, pp. 27-28, 1929.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not far from the invention of fire we must rank the invention of doubt.

  Thomas Huxley

  Fire, Doubt, Atheism

  "T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator". Book by Cyril Bibby, p. 257, 1950.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything - go on questioning, however long it takes.

  Rajneesh

  Believe, Long, Mind

  5 Copy quote

• ...the number of saintly men has not yet risen to the level where the census makes them a separate statistical category.

  George Stigler

  Men, Numbers, Levels

  George Joseph Stigler, Paul Anthony Samuelson (1963). “A Dialogue on the Proper Economic Role of the State”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The lack of brotherhood among believers themselves has paralyzed the church in front of the skepticism and immorality of the world; but when we go back in simple faith to the one great fact of our redemption, we shall be both brought into closer fellowship with each other, and stimulated to more tender regard for the salvation of men.

  William Mackergo Taylor

  Simple, Men, Brotherhood

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 111, 1895.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion

  Richard P. Feynman

  Reliability, Experts, Opinion

  58 Copy quote

• I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.

  William S. Burroughs

  Hero, Thinking, Blow

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.339, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, it has ended in skepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to willful blindness and superstition.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Philosophy, Taken, Atheism

  4 Copy quote

• In England Giordano Bruno had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that country had written, in Italian, his most important works. It added not a little to the exasperation against him, that he was perpetually declaiming against the insincerity, the impostures, of his persecutors - that wherever he went he found skepticism varnished over and concealed by hypocrisy; and that it was not against the belief of men, but against their pretended belief, that he was fighting; that he was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor faith.

  John William Draper

  Country, Struggle, Fighting

  4 Copy quote

• The chief problem is, of course, whether the marching of the general spirit of things is heading consciously or sub- consciously toward an idea of extension of boundaries.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Ideas, Spirit

  4 Copy quote

• Scepticismcan never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill.

  George Eliot

  Standstill

  4 Copy quote