Skepticism Quotes - Page 15

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

  Richard P. Feynman

  Reliability, Experts, Opinion

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• If you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it [does] this, or it will do that, you should treat it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather.

  Danny Hillis

  Motivation, Inspiration, Talking

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• Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.

  Henri Poincare

  Believe, Science, Reflection

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrusich burrows into not just their personalities but the hunger that unites and drives their obsessions. She writes elegantly, and makes you think, and most important manages to hang onto her skepticism in the midst of her own collecting quest.

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• One does not have to be a 'climate change denier' to see that a degree of skepticism about the present consensus might be in order....Most likely, now - as in the past - many analysts have become carried away by the results of their models, which purport to look into a far distant future, and have convinced themselves that they must embark on a crusade to enlighten others.

  Colin Robinson

  Past, Order, Climate

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• The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism.

  William J. Brennan

  Military, Temptation, Healthy

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• I used everything as a positive
  to make me a better person and
  a better player. I have no regrets.
  Everytime I had to play a big game,
  I played a big game. I used some of
  the skepticism as a positive and motivation.

  Chris Osgood

  Motivation, Regret, Player

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• People are not "things" to be manipulated, labeled, boxed, bought, and sold. Above all else, they are not "human resources." They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing skepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labor with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness.

  Dee Hock

  Eye, Organization, People

  Dee Hock, VISA International (1999). “Birth of the Chaordic Age”, p.73, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

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• In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields-mathematics, physics, some others-the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Discovery, May

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• Skepticism is slow suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Suicidal

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.340, University of Georgia Press

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• We actually need intelligent doubt and skepticism; they protect us against mistaken views and propaganda.

  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

  Intelligent, Views, Doubt

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• People confuse the word cynicism with the word skepticism. One is “you’re not gonna pay attention to anything, think everything’s screwed up, nothing’s ever gonna work out right”, that’s cynicism. But skepticism is, “you’re presented with evidence and you do your best to draw conclusions based on that”. So, as the saying goes, Bill Nye, do you believe in ghosts? No. However, I would love to see one. Bring it on. I’m open minded to the idea, but the more I look into it in a skeptical frame of thinking, the less likely it seems.

  Bill Nye

  Believe, Thinking, Ideas

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• The decline of witch-belief was . . . entirely the product of religious skepticism. . . . The Catholic Church did not reform itself on this matter; it was forced by outside pressure to reform. To be sure, the Protestant churches were no better in this regard; it is simply that they had less time - only two or three centuries - to engage in the torching of witches. After all, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, stated quite correctly that disbelief in witches meant a disbelief in the Bible.

  S. T. Joshi

  Religious, Two, Catholic

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• The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Religion, Atheism

  Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, March 04, 1831.

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• There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.

  Walter Lippmann

  Thinking, Self, Ideas

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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• Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Science, Open Minded

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.359, University of Georgia Press

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• Doubt, skepticism, innovation, and inquiry are the only means by which wonder, beauty, awe, and symmetry will be discovered.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Mean, Innovation, Doubt

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• What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
  heaven?

  William Shakespeare

  Heaven, Humanity, Hamlet And Ophelia

  William Shakespeare (1823). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings”, p.920

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• No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet?

  Bernard Ramm

  Philosophy, Book, Psychology

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• The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Believe, Simple

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.20, Routledge

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• One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Motivation, Use

  Thomas Paine (1826). “A Letter to Camille Jordan, of the Council of Five Hundred: Occasioned by His Report on the Priests, the Worship, and the Bells”, p.6

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• It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Morning, Good Day, Science

  On Aggression ch. 2 (1966)

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• Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

  John F. Kennedy

  Sad, Teacher, Appreciation

  Vanderbilt University 90th Anniversary Convocation Address, delivered 18 May 1963, Vanderbilt University Stadium, Nashville Tennessee

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