Skepticism Quotes - Page 19

• I go to church because I am a skeptic in regard to my own skepticism.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Church, Regard, My Own

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• The Americans are clever. They thoroughly understand things that have to do with money, war, death, sickness. And there is also a real tradition of skepticism in this country.

  Gore Vidal

  Country, Clever, Real

  "The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

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• Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.

  Lydia M. Child

  Heart, Glowing, Age

  "Letters from New York". Book by Lydia Maria Child, Letter No. 33, 1843.

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• As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wise, Men, Darkness

  Charles Caleb Colton (1837). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think”, p.97

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• The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Infidelity, Depth, Treasure

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.109

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• I have sworn upon the altar of god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Faith Religion

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

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• Every theory in medicine, if medicine is to remain healthy, must be beaten out on the anvil of skepticism. So do we weed out charlatanism.

  Alice Tisdale Hobart

  Weed, Health, Doctors

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• Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Realism

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1465, Random House

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• Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government.

  Howard Zinn

  Thinking, Government, Ideas

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• Democrats have a long history of utilizing the threat of a potential Ebola outbreak to request massive federal funds while attacking Republicans for expressing skepticism over their funding schemes.

  Aaron Klein

  Ebola, Long, Republican

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• A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world -- not perfect -- but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is.

  James Randi

  Hate, Thinking, Psychics

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

  Marianne Williamson

  Thinking, Differences, Pharmaceutical

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• Trust is tough. Once trust has been broken by multiple people on multiple occasions, believing in anyone or anything becomes increasingly difficult. Much of the skepticism of our world can be traced back to broken trust.

  Dillon Burroughs

  Believe, Our World, People

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• Skepticism turns to cynicism, which leads to apathy and despair, which can cause sleeplessness, dry-mouth, and loss of sex drive?

  Al Franken

  Sex, Loss, Despair

  "Why Not Me?". Book by Al Franken, www.cnn.com. January 12, 1999.

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• A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places, and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchisin g them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Mean, Survival

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• The story of Ramakrishna is a story of religion in practice. His life enables us to see God face to face.... In this age of skepticism Ramakrishna presents an example of a bright and living faith which gives solace to thousands of men and women who would otherwise have remained without spiritual light.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Men, Light

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Homage to the Departed”

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• Skepticism is not a position; it's a process.

  Michael Shermer

  Process, Position

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• Religion is an act of sedition against reason. Whatever religion is most seductive and likely to draw in victims to surrender their skepticism is the worst.

  PZ Myers

  Atheist, Seductive, Surrender

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• ...As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new scientific theories in any field are regarded with skepticism because scientists become attached to the old perspective earlier in their careers.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Dark, Careers, Perspective

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• This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking "What do I know?"

  Michel de Montaigne

  Understanding, Asking, Notion

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• What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Government, People

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.17

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• I've encountered a lot of people who sound like critics but very few who have substantive criticisms. There is a lot of skepticism, but it seems to be more a matter of inertia than it is of people having some real reason for thinking something else.

  K. Eric Drexler

  Real, Thinking, People

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Practicals

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Wallace E. Williams, Joseph Slater (1987). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men: seven lectures”, p.89, Harvard University Press

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• There is a horrifying loneliness at work in this time. No, listen to me. We lived six and seven to a room in those days, when I was still among the living. The city streets were seas of humanity; and now in these high buildings dim-witted souls hover in luxurious privacy, gazing through the television window at a faraway world of kissing and touching. It is bound to produce some great fund of common knowledge, some new level of human awareness, a curious skepticism, to be so alone.

  Anne Rice

  Loneliness, Kissing, Sea

  Anne Rice (2010). “The Queen of the Damned”, p.83, Ballantine Books

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• And yet one can't forever stand on the shore; at some point, even if filled with indecision, skepticism, reservation and doubt, you either jump in or concede that life is forever elsewhere.

  Arthur Miller

  Forever, Doubt, Life Is

  "The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller".

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