Skepticism Quotes - Page 9

• I respect more the person who struggles with his faith than the person who is confident in his skepticism.

  Robert Breault

  Struggle, Belief, Persons

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• We assume a common sense as the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our knowledge, which is presupposed in every logic and every principle of knowledge that is not one of skepticism.

  Immanuel Kant

  Knowledge, Common Sense, Principles

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• The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Sacrifice, Race, Heroism

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.193, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Freud, Jung thought, had been a great discoverer of facts about the mind, but far too inclined to leave the solid ground of "critical reason and common sense." Freud for his part criticized Jung for being gullible about occult phenomena and infatuated with Oriental religions; he viewed with sardonic and unmitigated skepticism Jung's defense of religious feelings as an integral element in mental health. For Freud, religion was a psychological need projected onto culture, the child's feeling of helplessness surviving in adults, to be analyzed rather than admired.

  Peter Gay

  Religious, Children, Psychological Needs

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• Perfect Scepticismeis a disease incurable, and a thing rather to be pitied or laughed at, then seriously opposed. For when aman is so fugitive and unsettled that he will not stand to the verdict of his own Faculties, one can no more fasten any thing upon him, than he can write in the water, or tye knots in the wind.

  Henry More

  Writing, Wind, Perfect

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• I have serious problems with fundamentalist Christians and their creationist theories. Although I believe that scripture is divinely inspired and infallible, I have a hard time going along with the belief that the whole creation process occurred in six twenty-four hour days. My skepticism is due, in part, to the fact that the Bible says that the sun wasn’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:16-19). I have a hard time figuring how twenty-four hour days could have been measured before that.

  Tony Campolo

  Christian, Believe, Hard Times

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• Education must enable young people to effect what they have recognized to be right, despite hardships, despite dangers, despite inner skepticism, despite boredom, and despite mockery from the world. . . .

  Kurt Hahn

  People, Boredom, Hardship

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• No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith.

  Paul Kurtz

  Would Be, Virtue, Claims

  "Multi-Secularism: A New Agenda" by Paul Kurtz, (p. 338), 2014.

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• I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.

  Walter Isaacson

  Thinking, Nuclear, Hussein

  "Buying the War". "Bill Moyers Journal", www.pbs.org. April 25, 2007.

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• These matters require what I think of as the Shakespearean cast of thought. That is to say, a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively skepticism about everything.... It keeps you constantly alert to every possibility.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Healthy, Matter

  Robertson Davies (1991). “Murther and Walking Spirits”, Penguin Group USA

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• All that the posture of skepticism accomplishes is to freeze the ego in an ignorantist poverty that never stretches or diversifies its resources of imagination or understanding. Any uncultured cretin can close his eyes and try to reduce the issues down to linear simplisms and say, "I am doubting, I am proving my magisterial or sovereign control over my own mind." Doubt is a useful and significant test of one's critical powers, but by itself it bears little if any significant cultural charge of enlightenment or satori; indeed it is the very opposite kind of thing.

  Kenny Smith

  Eye, Opposites, Issues

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• Every race man and woman should cast aside their skepticism regarding the Negro's ability as a motion picture star.

  Oscar Micheaux

  Stars, Men, Race

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Twenties, Saint, Four

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1954). “Basic Selections from Emerson: Essays, Poems & Apothegms”

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• I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some particular part of the past, and the danger of not getting back in time for your orals.

  John Lewis Gaddis

  Past, Perspective, Historical

  John Lewis Gaddis (2004). “The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past”, p.22, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Skepticism is my nature, freethought is my methodology, agnosticism is my conclusion after 25 years of being in the ministry, and atheism is my opinion.

  Jerry DeWitt

  Years, Atheism, Ministry

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• If a man have a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Life, Faith, Strong

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (2007). “Twilight of the Idols with the Antichrist and Ecce Homo”, p.54, Wordsworth Editions

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• I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
  (i) this is worthless nonsense;
  (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
  (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
  (iv) I always said so.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Acceptance, Views, Interesting

  Journal of Genetics, Vol. 58, 1963.

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• People rise and fall to meet your level of expectations for them. If you express skepticism and doubt in others, they will return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they will go the extra mile trying to do their best.

  John C. Maxwell

  Believe, Fall, People

  John C. Maxwell, Jim Dornan (2013). “How to Influence People: Make a Difference in Your World”, p.37, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• With so many contradictory renditions of the biblical text, the public has lost confidence that we can actually know what the Bible says. It is an easy step from this skepticism to an indifference about what the Bible says.

  Leland Ryken

  Biblical, Steps, Indifference

  "Leland Ryken Interview: Differences in Bible Translations". Christian Publishing House Interview, christianpublishinghouse.co.

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• My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift.

  J Tillman

  Creativity

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• The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.

  Massimo Pigliucci

  Thinking, Ideas, Rejection

  Massimo Pigliucci (2010). “Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk”, p.75, University of Chicago Press

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• Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Blood, Religion, Pulse

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.

  Bertrand Russell

  Foolish Man, Wisest Man, Thought Provoking

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The question so often asked of modern painting, "What is it?", contains more than the dull skepticism of the man who is not going to have the wool pulled over his eyes. It speaks of a fundamental placement in relation to the work, that of a voyager in the world coming upon a strange object. The reader reconstitutes the work by his active participation, by approaching the object, tapping it, shaking it, holding it to his ear to hear the roaring within. It is characteristic of the object that it does not declare itself all at once, in a rush of pleasant naïveté.

  Donald Barthelme

  Eye, Men, Vets

  "After Joyce (1964)". "Not-Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme". Book by Donald Barthelme, p. 4, 1997.

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• Doing a movie about Steve Jobs is just generally a provocative thing to do, whoever does it, and it begs a lot of questioning and skepticism only in that, what is this going to be? What am I going to be looking at? And curiosity as well. I think thats all positive in any film, because you want people to be curious about it.

  Joshua Michael Stern

  Jobs, Thinking, People

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