Top 100 Quotes About Skeptics
#1. The shamanic realm is to get you out of the word set. For skeptics, that's impossible, and they just can't see that and it just makes no sense.
Fred Alan Wolf
#3. [Science] has challenged the super-eminence of religion; it has turned all philosophy out of doors except that which clings to its skirts; it has thrown contempt on all learning that does not depend on it; and it has bribed the skeptics by giving us immense material comforts.
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
#4. Skeptics," he said, "suffer from the skeptics' disease
the problem of being right too often.
Scott Adams
#5. People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.
Carl Sagan
#6. In ancient Greece, skeptics were those who thought, not those who scoffed.
Gene Wolfe
#7. By spring of '98, each company's stock had more than quadrupled. Skeptics questioned earnings and revenue multiples higher than those for any non-internet company. It was easy to conclude that the market had gone crazy.
Peter Thiel
#8. Conformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday ... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side ... in the great ideological wars of our time.
Isaiah Berlin
#9. I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.
Murray Gell-Mann
#10. Even David Hume, one of history most famous skeptics, said it's just barely possible that God exists.
Peter Kreeft
#11. Contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, the Soviet economy is proof that a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.
Paul Samuelson
#12. Taxonomically, my family is Freethinker (including atheists, skeptics, agnostics); my genus is Humanist (including the religion-based), and my species is Secular.
John Rafferty
#13. The study of God requires intellectual effort, historical imagination, empathic energy, and participation in a vital community of prayer (Augustine, Answer to Skeptics).
Thomas C. Oden
#14. Because I know you live on the hope of seeing a better tomorrow, unlike the skeptics who have nothing to live for today. I would rather die with hope, than to live without any hope at all.
Nely Cab
#15. The Bible has, amazingly- no doubt with supernatural grace-survived its critics. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, the better read it becomes.
Charles Colson
#16. One should not be deceived: great spirits are skeptics ... Strength, FREEDOM which is born of the strength and overstrength of the spirit, proves itself by skepticism. Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue. Convictions are prisons.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#17. Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.
Bertrand Russell
#18. I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.
Rene Descartes
#19. I urge the media to start referring to climate skeptics as what they really are: climate assholes.
Bill Maher
#20. I do know plenty of atheists, agnostics and skeptics who have become Christians through the years. In fact, several of my friends were once strong atheists but are now committed followers of Jesus.
Lee Strobel
#21. Everyone, including skeptics, will generate delusions that match their views. That is how a normal and healthy brain works. Skeptics are not exempt from self-delusion.
Scott Adams
#22. Cut through the ridicule and search for factual information in most of the skeptical commentary and one is usually left with nothing. This is not surprising. After all, how can one rationally object to a call for scientific examination of evidence? Be skeptical of the skeptics.
Bernard Haisch
#23. Unlike in Europe, where serving is often a career rather than a backup plan, American table-waiting remains a bootstrap business, and some of the biggest skeptics of waiter training courses and schools are seasoned servers themselves.
David Sax
#24. The skeptics said you can't put on a costume in the middle of New York - which isn't true, because everyone's in a costume here.
Avi Arad
#25. We are such skeptics that we find it difficult to believe in God and angels and a spiritual afterlife, but a moment of fear makes our spirit so vulnerable that it allows us to believe in something beyond that.
Guillermo Del Toro
#26. Do you know ... what I think is a great pity? It is this: that we have all become such skeptics that we hardly believe what our pious grandmothers told us.
Isak Dinesen
#27. [Con] men have long known ... that their job is not to convince skeptics but to enable the gullible to continue to believe what they want to believe.
Thomas Sowell
#28. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress.
Daniel J. Boorstin
#29. There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters.
Al Gore
#31. If skeptics were willing to give the Gospels the same 'benefit of the doubt' they are willing to give other ancient documents, the Gospels would easily pass the test of authorship.
J. Warner Wallace
#32. Skeptics always want miracles such as stepping down from the Cross, but never the greater miracle of forgiveness.
Fulton J. Sheen
#33. Congress has always had a soft spot for "experts" who tell members what they want to hear, whether it's supply-side economists declaring that tax cuts increase revenue or climate-change skeptics insisting that global warming is a myth.
Paul Krugman
#34. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.
Calvin Coolidge
#35. The problem of evil is raised more often by spectators of life than the actual combatants. You will hardly ever find that the great sufferers are the great skeptics.
James Stewart
#36. Indeed, bull markets are fueled by successive waves of prior skeptics finally capitulating as their fears fade. Eventually, fear turns to euphoria, and that's the stuff of bubbles.
Kenneth Fisher
#37. The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.
John Keats
#38. Several respected climate scientists have told me that there would be even more vocal skeptics if they were not afraid of losing funding, much of which is controlled by politically correct organizations.
Peter Friedman
#39. Anytime you do something out of the ordinary, there will be skeptics. Everyone wants a reason why. That's fine. What's happened with me is just an accumulation of a lot of things.
Brian Roberts
#40. Many unbelievers have threatened or prophesied the destruction of the Bible. Few people know the names of the skeptics. Everyone knows the names of Moses and Isaiah and Luke and Paul.
William Henry Houghton
#41. So most skeptics who criticize us are really just misinformed and kind of ignorant. They're just assuming something about us. We're quite critical ourselves, but we're here to help people.
Ryan Buell
#42. Doctrines which can stand the trial of logic and reason can do without persecuting skeptics. This
Ludwig Von Mises
#43. Whitefield, again, was among the first to show the right way to meet infidels and skeptics. He saw clearly that the most powerful weapon against such men is not metaphysical reasoning and critical disquisition; but preaching the whole gospel, living the whole gospel, and spreading the whole gospel.
J.C. Ryle
#44. I think that my career speaks for itself and shows the type of player I am. I have never had a teammate who didn't enjoy playing with me. There are always going to be skeptics, but chemistry will definitely not be an issue.
Chris Webber
#46. I've met a surprising number of comedy writers whose parents are scientists. Both have an antiauthoritarian slant - they're both skeptics.
Allison Silverman
#47. If we seek the truth without realizing how far we are from it, we will be dogmatists. If we realize how far we are from the truth but do not seek it, we will be skeptics. If we both seek the truth and realize how far we are from it, we will be wise.
Peter Kreeft
#48. Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics.
Norman Finkelstein
#49. Working together during the past three years, we have confounded the skeptics and the cynics. We've shown that here in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans can come together, put politics aside, and make tough decisions when times demand it.
Mark Warner
#50. As for me, I am unfortunate enough not to posses a happy temperament like Najdorf, who views every happening in a rosy light and avoids any possibility of self-criticism. I am one of those unlucky skeptics who never overlook the dark side of even the happiest experience.
Savielly Tartakower
#51. All that stock of arguments [the skeptics] produce to depreciate our faculties, and make mankind appear ignorant and low, are drawn principally from this head, to wit, that we are under an invincible blindness as to the true and real nature of things.
George Berkeley
#52. The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.
Sheri S. Tepper
#53. 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
#54. The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive - and autonomy can be the antidote. TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEO
Daniel H. Pink
#55. On the science of global climate change, I'm an agnostic. I've seen Al Gore's movie, and I've read reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I've also listened to the 'skeptics.' I don't know who's right.
Robert Bryce
#56. I don't believe there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with the politics that apply to the protection of quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a member of a cult.
Sean Penn
#57. Actually I'm pretty adamant about, you know, the whole God thing and it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with. So it turned out to be a good thing and I have become enthusiastically part of it.
Jamie Hyneman
#58. There are people who are wired to be skeptics and there are people who are wired to be optimists. And I can tell you, at least from the last 20 years, if you bet on the side of the optimists, generally you're right.
Marc Andreessen
#59. Be thankful for the people who have stood by you and cheered you on, but don't forget to be thankful for the ones that said it could not be done. Writing a book is no small task and even the skeptics can help you get where you want to be!
C.K. Webb
#60. Let the skeptics have their doubts. I prefer to believe that ideas do have wings!
Norman Vincent Peale
#61. In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious.
Michael Shermer
#62. The most intense skeptics and the most intense believers of our age share a common conviction: that beneath all superficial appearances lies a deeper truth.
Mark Juergensmeyer
#63. Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game.
Matt Taibbi
#64. To far too many, science is a four-letter word, and under the modern media's false equivalency standards, a handful of skeptics are viewed as counterweights to the vast majority of scientists who acknowledge mankind's proven role in global warming.
Christine Pelosi
#65. I take notice of those who have argued consistently for the modernisation of the E.U., but so many of the skeptics in Britain are just hostile to the whole European idea.
Neil Kinnock
#66. Most skeptics aren't really skeptics at all. To be truly skeptical, one must actually examine something, and take it seriously.
Eben Alexander
#67. There are always going to be skeptics. Prove them wrong.
Robert Kiyosaki
#68. Ironically, the only people anyone believes these days are the skeptics.
J.S.B. Morse
#69. True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
#70. The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have ... whether you like it or not.
Josh McDowell
#71. I do think it's often a mistake to call them climate skeptics. I think they're deniers, just as I think president Ahmadinejad of iran who claims not to believe that the Holocaust occurred.
Thomas Schelling
#72. Write something the skeptics will sneer at.
Marty Rubin
#73. I dream of a church that is once again called great, even by our skeptics, because our works of mercy cannot be denied.
Jen Hatmaker
#74. Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists
Blaise Pascal
#75. I'd rather be encouraged by an ant to live than taught to doubt by fifty skeptics.
Marty Rubin
#76. The skeptics who say it can't be done are simply in extremely limited states of mind. They can't even perceive the possibility of anybody doing something that they can't do.
Frederick Lenz
#77. There was a danger that skeptics and opponents would misread those likelihood ratio tests as rejections of an entire class of models, which of course they were not.
Thomas J. Sargent
#78. Scientists are skeptics. It's unfortunate that the word 'skeptic' has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it's just thoughtful inquiry.
Michael Shermer
#79. Skeptics would rather, even at their own expense, appear to be right than take the risk of trusting.
John Ortberg
#80. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the skeptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics.
Imre Lakatos
#81. Tim Keller's ministry in New York City is leading a generation of seekers and skeptics toward belief in God. I thank God for him.
Billy Graham
#82. Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics ...
Rob Brezsny
#83. Our ability to extinguish new ideas is critical to productivity and to our capacity to scale existing projects. In a team setting, the skeptics - the ones who always question ideas first rather than falling in love with them - are the white blood cells.
Scott Belsky
#84. Reckless predictions of the second coming of Christ create an artificial excitement among believers followed by a corresponding depression. In addition, it hardens skeptics in their unbelief and provides new fodder for cynics to mock the Christian faith.
Doug Batchelor
#85. Obviously there are going to be a lot of skeptics. I only hope I can prove them wrong and give the idea of model-slash-anything a genuine chance.
Karen Elson
#86. Why is it that skeptics are always being accused of arrogance? For the record, we're the guys who DON'T claim to have absolute knowledge about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, what happens when we die, what will happen in the future, etc.
Guy P. Harrison
#87. It's not true that skeptics consider nothing sacred. They consider freedom sacred.
Marty Rubin
#88. podcast called Skeptics Guide to the Universe,
Sia Mohajer
#89. If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.
Tom Wigley
#90. And then you see right away it may well happen that you enter a decade or maybe even two, when the temperature cools relative to the present level ... I'm definitely not one of the skeptics ... However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves, or some other people will do it.
Mojib Latif
#91. The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.
Christopher Hitchens
#92. LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
Terence McKenna
#93. Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it.
Michael Shermer
#94. My best friends are all either bottomless skeptics or quite uncontrollable believers ...
G.K. Chesterton
#95. There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.
Bill Gates
#96. Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing ... I do not understand it ... Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is ... , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.
Michel De Montaigne
#97. In a free society, skeptics are the watchdogs against irrationalism - the consumer advocates of ideas. Debunking is not simply the divestment of bunk; its utility is in offering a better alternative, along with a lesson on how thinking goes wrong.
Michael Shermer
#98. I've stopped caring about skeptics, but if they libel or defame me they will end up in court.
Uri Geller
#99. Prominent scientists have become increasingly convinced that the connection between carbon emissions and rising temperatures is real, but skeptics have whole truckloads of studies to demonstrate the opposite.
David Ignatius