quotations about skepticism
Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.
JOHANN GEORG HAMANN
Briefwechsel
As the ages passed so little evidence remained
We turned to mysticism for the unexplained
The modern day has made the skepticism grow
When comes Millennium the world will finally know
CAGE
"Unveiled"
Suffer not your faith to be shaken by the sophistries of skeptics.
S. CLARKE
attributed, Day's Collacon
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?
Skeptics are apt to be superstitious; the moral restlessness of perpetual doubt often superinduces nervous timidity.
GEORGE BANCROFT
History of the United States of America
Apathy increasing where skepticism once prevailed
Ignorance covering the youth like a bride's white veil
DANCE HALL CRASHERS
"Blind Leading the Blind"
The skeptics never make it through the static.
LESS THAN JAKE
"Jump"
Skeptics are generally ready to believe anything, provided is it only sufficiently improbable; it is at matters of fact that such people stumble.
KARL LUDWIG VON KNEBEL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Liquid promises drain
With your lies
Blaming others before
Yourself
Forgotten disposable fool
Caught in a fictional
Daydream
Skeptic, unbeliever
Taking everything for granted
Shallow
INTO ETERNITY
"Shallow"
If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.
ANN DRUYAN
Editor's Introduction, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."
H. L. MENCKEN
Minority Report
Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
ERIC HOFFER
The Passionate State of Mind and Other Aphorisms
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.
CARL SAGAN
"The Burden of Skepticism"
There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
letter to Armando Garcia Jr., December 11, 1985
Skeptics, like dolphins, change when dying.
LADY BLESSINGTON
"Desultory Thoughts and Reflections by the Countess of Blessington", The Literary World
Skepticism is the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT
Pensées philosophiques
Along the master plan
Heading to the barricade
Diversity or skepticism falls into my brain
I rubbed it with the bow
And I listened to the string
Then the whisper of the end
Slipped into the dialogue
HIATUS
"Ghost in the Rain"
Skepticism, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. Skepticism is the father of freedom. It is like the pry that holds open the door for truth to slip in.
GERRY SPENCE
Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life
I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius, and we're skeptical.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
attributed, "Sir Arthur's Quotations", The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation
All forms of modern skepticism have a common philosophical foundation. Their philosophy denies that we can know any thing except that which we learn through the senses directly, or through conclusions deduced from the senses. We know that there is a sun because we see it; we know approximately its weight and its distance from the earth, because by long processes of reasoning we reach conclusions on those subjects from phenomena which we do see. What we do not thus see, or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell, or thus conclude from what we have seen, or heard, or touched, or tasted, or smelled, is said to belong to the unknown and unknowable. This is the basis of modern skepticism. It is the basis, too, of much of modern theology. It is the secret of the " scientific method." By this method we conclude the existence of an invisible God from the phenomena of life exactly as we conclude the existence of an invisible ether from the phenomena of light. But the God thus deduced is like the ether, only an hypothesis. It is quite legitimate to offer a new hypothesis; and the scientist will be as ready to accept one hypothesis as another, provided it accounts for the phenomena. This philosophy, pursued to its legitimate and logical conclusion, issues in the denial that man is a religious being; or possesses a spiritual nature; or is any thing more than a highly organized and developed animal.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature