Top 100 Quotes About Skepticism
#1. He was the least spiritual of all the monks here, accepting nothing without proof. This skepticism was simultaneously his greatest asset and his greatest impediment.
Amy Thomson
#2. Enforced religion breeds precisely what it most fears: rebellion against religion, cynicism about religion, skepticism about its claims, and, as a consequence, indifference at best or outright antipathy at worst.
Langdon Brown Gilkey
#3. God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or a piece of floating space debris circling Pegasi. In this feeling-dead world of post traumatic stress, skepticism is king, queen, and court jester.
Chila Woychik
#4. On my best days, I fancy myself a combination of Dad's persistence/patience and Mom's toughness/skepticism.
David Einhorn
#5. In my life, the only certainty is to be uncertain. I'm an unbeliever who believes in skepticism. I'm only sure about being unsure.
Christopher Hitchens
#6. higher concentration of dopamine appears to lower skepticism and result in greater vulnerability to pattern detection; an
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#8. I think I've always had a certain amount of skepticism of this whole 'shut up and smile' theory. I haven't ever swallowed that pill so easily, although I tried.
Amber Heard
#9. Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.
Louis Pasteur
#10. 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
#11. Searching for truth without skepticism, is like having sex without a genital.
Abhijit Naskar
#12. Every reporter inhales skepticism. You interview people, and they lie. You face public figures, diligently making notes or taping what is said, and they perform their interviews to fit a calculated script. The truth, alas, is always elusive.
Pete Hamill
#13. Ove feels an instinctive skepticism towards all people taller than six feet; the blood can't quite make it all the way up to the brain.
Fredrik Backman
#14. As for Lindbergh, another eminent servant of science, all he proved by his gaudy flight across the Atlantic was that God takes care of those who have been so fortunate as to come into the world foolish. Expressing skepticism that adventure does not necessarily contribute to scientific knowledge.
H.L. Mencken
#15. When you become a transformer, you become faced with the challenge of skepticism
Sunday Adelaja
#16. 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
#17. Skepticism is only a time-based reality, and as an ultimate reality, it's always wrong, because everything always happens.
Kevin Shields
#18. There is no skepticism without science and the scientific method. It's about how we know what we know.
Steven Novella
#19. 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
#20. Perhaps the best we can do is to work to uphold the human virtues and qualities we most value, even in the face of everyone's cynicism, skepticism and distrust, including our own.
Darrell Calkins
#21. I have a lot of skepticism about marriage and monogamy.
Rashida Jones
#22. I don't think of myself as particularly earnest. I have long bouts of cynicism and skepticism. So much of my early life was full of uncertainties. It still is. My "Buddha book" expresses that. Perhaps that's what created this impression of earnestness.
Pankaj Mishra
#23. I'm a lawyer. Pessimists see a glass half-empty; optimists see a glass half-full. Lawyers see a glass containing possible carcinogenic materials without a warning label. Skepticism is coded in our DNA.
Naima Simone
#24. I think comics is a really good way to talk about skepticism and atheism and things like that ... it was easy to tell those stories and, I think, helpful to some people to tell them in comic form. Using visuals makes it easier to break stuff down and makes it somewhat easier to understand.
Box Brown
#26. Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.
Robert K. Merton
#27. Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.
Bertrand Russell
#28. One can't stand forever on the shore. At some point, filled with indecision, skepticism, reservation and doubt, you either jump in or concede that life is forever elsewhere
Arthur Miller
#29. The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism about government.
George Will
#30. You have to do a show as honestly as you can. But you also can't afford skepticism, because it's preparing for failure, which is useless.
Louis C.K.
#31. The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.
Nikki Giovanni
#32. I go to church because I am a skeptic in regard to my own skepticism.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
#33. The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.
George Jean Nathan
#34. I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.
Michael Hastings
#35. 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
#36. Satisfaction is no more the solution to frustration than certainty is the solution to skepticism.
Adam Phillips
#37. 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
#38. His face registered the five stages of unlawful investigation: disbelief, skepticism, impatience, irritation, and astonishment.
Suzanne M. Trauth
#39. Well, I had a small degree, that little infection of skepticism about America which resides in the minds of even America's closest friends. That America can't be quite as good as it says it is. And why does it need so relentlessly to keep saying how good it is?
Robert MacNeil
#40. The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
Thomas Huxley
#42. Our politics, economics, advertising, and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism,
Carl Sagan
#43. Almost all arguments for skepticism make reference to seemingly ridiculous possibilities - we are being deceived by an evil demon, life is just a dream, we are brains in vats. You might propose psychoanalysis, rather than philosophical reflection, for anyone who worries about these possibilities.
Richard Feldman
#44. Every race man and woman should cast aside their skepticism regarding the Negro's ability as a motion picture star.
Oscar Micheaux
#45. ... skepticism is a way of freeing the dogmatic mind, and that's where its value lies.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#46. While many of Mr. Obama's ideas warrant skepticism, conservative opposition to any expanded role for government is a mistake.
Paul Singer
#47. The true skeptic is skeptical even about skepticism.
Marty Rubin
#48. We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government.
Mitch Daniels
#49. It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
#50. I'm the most cynical person, and I know what that sounds like when you say, I don't drink and drive, and I don't. But I know people look at that with skepticism, and I understand.
Tracey Gold
#51. Seriously?" she said with a glance of skepticism. Driggs and this nerdlinger? "You guys are best friends?"
Ferbus looked up briefly to give her a smug look. "We prefer the term heterosexual life mates.
Gina Damico
#52. To demand the absolute and to be content with absolutely nothing else results in a skepticism.
Bernard J.F. Lonergan
#53. Spiritual matters can often masquerade themselves in natural patterns of behavior. For example, unbelief disguises itself as skepticism and procrastination.
Kirby Clements
#54. Sweet Skepticism of the Heart That knows and does not know And tosses like a Fleet of Balm Affronted by the snow.
Emily Dickinson
#55. 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
#57. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with skepticism and solitude.
Virginia Woolf
#58. I simply go with what works. And what works is the healthy skepticism embodied in the scientific method. Believe me, if the Bible had ever been shown to be a rich source of scientific answers and enlightenment, we would be mining it daily for cosmic discovery.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
#59. Tulsi, beyond any perceivable clouds of skepticism, was the best living form of beauty known - the matchless delight, the most generous blessing granted to a human eyeball.
Pawan Mishra
#60. Everybody's part of the greater whole and skepticism and virtue are a part of that.
Marc Webb
#61. 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
#62. Radical skepticism is no more critical than is credulity.
Craig A. Evans
#63. Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana
#64. True courage is mixed with circumspection, the kind of healthy skepticism that asks, 'Is this the best way to do this?' True cowardice is marked by chronic skepticism, which always says, 'It can't be done.'
William Bennett
#65. Without constructive skepticism, without human progress.
Pearl Zhu
#66. 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
#67. To Borody and a small band of like-minded brethren who believe in the power of poop, we are standing at the threshold of a new era in medicine. Borody sees the benefits of fecal therapy as "equivalent to the discovery of antibiotics." But first, there is much skepticism to overcome.
Steven D. Levitt
#68. By skepticism ... we arrive first at suspension of judgment, and second at freedom from disturbance.
Sextus Empiricus
#69. To have a solid foundation of skepticism, -that is to say, the faculty of changing at any moment, of turning back, of facing successively the metamorphoses of life.
Remy De Gourmont
#70. Fifteen years of skepticism has done more for me than 20 years of force-fed religion and 30 years of indifference in between.
Victor J. Stenger
#71. Indeed, women like Peterman who admitted they joined the army for adventure as opposed to patriotism or love were often viewed with skepticism and derision by the press because their actions and motivations failed to conform to accepted romantic and cultural ideals.
DeAnne Blanton And Lauren M. Cook
#72. Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others ...
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#73. In my view, as a country we need to rediscover some of that skepticism about government and revisit that libertarian agenda.
Charles Kennedy
#74. Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you relinquish the notions of male and female, short and long, life and death? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic? If so, you can reach the heart of the Integral Oneness.
Laozi
#75. Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
Michael Shermer
#76. Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.
Henry Ward Beecher
#77. Doubt, skepticism, innovation, and inquiry are the only means by which wonder, beauty, awe, and symmetry will be discovered.
Christopher Hitchens
#78. Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.
George Will
#79. And they want me to defend religion, and they want me to give them proofs. I just won't do it. It only confirms them in their skepticism. Because nothing true can be said a out God from a posture of defense.
Marilynne Robinson
#80. The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
George Berkeley
#81. Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.
John Ortberg
#82. 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
#83. My position now, especially in this town, adds an element of skepticism with people you meet - especially girls. I mean, it becomes a lot more difficult.
Jason Biggs
#84. It is at the cross-roads that skepticism is born, not in a hermitage.
Walter Lippmann
#85. They were completely lacking in the sort of healthy skepticism needed to attain any degree of wisdom.
Haruki Murakami
#86. Academic library collections are designed to support critical thinking, skepticism about the known, and curiosity about the unknown.
Wayne Bivens-Tatum
#87. Vaccines don't cause autism. Vaccines, instead, prevent disease. Vaccines have wiped out a score of formerly deadly childhood diseases. Vaccine skepticism has helped to bring some of those diseases back from near extinction.
Alex Pareene
#88. Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#89. The magical thinking encouraged by any belief in the supernatural, combined with the vilification of rationality and skepticism, is more conducive to conspiracy theories than it is to productive political debate.
Wendy Kaminer
#90. It is absurd to try to confine our knowledge and belief to matters which are conclusively established by sound deductive arguments. The demand for certainty will inevitably be disappointed, leaving skepticism in command of almost every issue.
J. L. Mackie
#91. Skepticism was a drug for him. Life's vicissitudes had taught him never to be caught without it. A most useful drug, it magically invigorated his heart, transforming opprobrium into piety and ignominy into tolerance.
Juan Filloy
#92. The most striking development of the great depression of 1929 is a profound skepticism of the future of contemporary society among large sections of the American people.
C.L.R. James
#93. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy or Gatsby anymore, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm.
F Scott Fitzgerald
#94. The point is, there's this new sense of skepticism and questioning toward tech, even if it is pretty inchoate. What I hope the book helps to do is help people clarify what is amiss, by presenting a critique that is grounded in economics.
Astra Taylor
#95. Skepticism has never founded empires, established principals, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been people of faith.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
#96. Where journalists have gotten themselves in trouble over the last few decades is that their skepticism often extends only to American officials, the U.S. military and Republican politicians.
Linda Chavez
#97. Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
#98. 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
#99. I definitely was attracted to similar things in punk and science. They both depend on a healthy dose of skepticism.
Greg Graffin
#100. Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.
Richard Feynman
