Skeptic Quotes

1. "A majority of Americans support Social Security and Medicare, a progressive tax system and a government that regulates business in the public interest, but most share deep skepticism about the government's ability to do all this well."
Author: Adam Davidson

2. "It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life?Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?"
Author: Alain De Botton

3. "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."
Author: Amber Heard

4. "He may actually have been existing in the past and approximating a conceivable future, which brought even the assumption of his immediate perceptions as being in the present into doubt. And thus, he couldn't—beyond a hint of skepticism—say that he truly existed right now and in this moment, but instead it seemed more rational to assume that he simply existed and nothing more."
Author: Ashim Shanker

5. "At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitueds--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new."
Author: Carl Sagan

6. "The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status."
Author: Carl Sagan

7. "Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule."
Author: Carl Sagan

8. "They rode for days through the rain and they rode through rain and hail and rain again. In that gray storm light they crossed a flooded plain with the footed shapes of the horses reflected in the water among clouds and mountains and the riders slumped forward and rightly skeptic of the shimmering cities on the distant shore of that sea whereon they trod miraculous. They climbed up through rolling grasslands where small birds shied away chittering down the wind and a buzzard labored up from among bones with wings that went whoop whoop whoop like a child's toy swung on a string and in the long red sunset the sheets of water on the plain below them lay like tidepools of primal blood."
Author: Cormac McCarthy

9. "The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel -- or one desperate for another life -- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright."
Author: Dallas Willard

10. "We should be cautiously open to the spiritual and non-rational, and skeptical of the more invisible magical thinking—what we might call "magical reason"—pervading secular thought and experience in modern society. Science and technology are for most people a new religion, and their orthodoxies are believed with the same fervor."
Author: David Watson

11. "You never question the truth of something until you have to explain it to a skeptic."
Author: Donald Miller

12. "Naive enough to set off in pursuit of Truth, I had explored - to no avail - any number of disciplines. I was beginning to be confirmed in my skepticism when the notion occurred to me of consulting, as a last result, Poetry: who knows? perhaps it would be profitable, perhaps it conceals beneath its arbitrary appearances some definitive revelation ... Illusory recourse! Poetry had outstripped be in negation and cost me even my uncertainties ..."
Author: Emil Cioran

13. "Religion would have us believe that immortality is reserved for the gods. We remain skeptical."
Author: Fiona Paul

14. "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."
Author: Gerry Spence

15. "To reason with the non-Christian in a fashion purporting to be independent of God or independent of reliance upon revelation is to honor the unregenerate's notions of "evidence" and "verification" as legitimate and correct. However, for the Christian, it is Scripture that governs *every* aspect of his life, even his concept of "evidence" and the way he reasons with skeptics."
Author: Greg L. Bahnsen

16. "The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. 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."
Author: H.L. Mencken

17. "My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift."
Author: J. Tillman

18. "My friend J. Warner Wallace is one of the most thoughtful and winsome apologists for the gospel I know. Cold-Case Christianity is literally packed with insights to share with the skeptics in your life, and this book will give you the confidence to share it!" Dr. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church"
Author: J. Warner Wallace

19. "We all approached doing a sequel with great trepidation and skepticism."
Author: Jason Biggs

20. "I was skeptical about doing Texas Chainsaw at first because it's such a cult classic. I'd seen some of the sequels and was not a fan of those."
Author: Jessica Biel

21. "I want to help you," Oliver said."Why?" Galen looked up at him. "Because of Petunia?" Oliver was relieved that the prince didn't seem to be skeptical about his conviction. He simply looked like he wanted to know, and so did Heinrich, when Oliver dared to look at the other prince. Oliver was very aware that Heinrich had known his father. Had known him better than Oliver had, in fact. "Because of her," Oliver said at last. "Even though I have only met her twice, really...I just...""I risked my life to save Rose after only speaking with her twice," Galen said with a small smile."
Author: Jessica Day George

22. "I'd say there was a fair amount of skepticism at the time about whether the Internet held any promise. And of course I felt that it did."
Author: Jim Clark

23. "Every development is first rejected, then skeptically accepted, next gradually embraced, and at last abundantly praised. Let's put it straight: it's a human trait."
Author: Joan Marques

24. "Saying Goodbye to Very Young Children"They will not be the same next time. The sayingsso cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged inthe more securely to the worldly buzzof television, alphabet, and street talk,culture polluting their gazes' dawn blue.It makes you see at last the value ofthose boring aunts and neighbors (their smellsof summer sweat and cigarettes, their faceslike shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)who knew you from the start, when you were zero,cooing their nothings before you could be boredor knew a name, not even you own, or howthis world brave with hellos turns all goodbye."
Author: John Updike

25. "[T]he longer you stay skeptical, doubtful, intellectually uncomfortable, the better it is for you."
Author: Joseph Brodsky

26. "Since total skepticism about ultimate beliefs is strictly impossible, in that no belief can be doubted except on the basis of some other belief, indifference is always in danger of giving place to some sort of fanaticism that can be as intolerant as any religion has ever been."
Author: Lesslie Newbigin

27. "It's possible that the reason I've never experienced a ghostly presence is that my temporal lobes aren't wired for it. It could well be that the main difference between skeptics (Susan Blackmore notwithstanding) and believers is the neural structure they were born with. But the question still remains: Are these people whose EMF-influenced brains alert them to "presences" picking up something real that the rest of us can't pick up, or are they hallucinating? Here again, we must end with the Big Shrug, a statue of which is being erected on the lawn outside my office."
Author: Mary Roach

28. "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."
Author: Michael Shermer

29. "Uncertain of uncertainty, skeptical of skepticism, it seems that the most important question is whether there is an important question."
Author: Mitchell Heisman

30. "Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse."
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

31. "His skeptical silence made me shift uncomfortably. I felt like Aladdin, holding his hand out to Jasmine on the magic carpet. A ridiculous comparison under the given circumstances, and yet oddly apt."
Author: Nenia Campbell

32. "If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli's, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view. In reality however, behind this outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest even in those dark areas of reality of the human mind which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli's analyses of physical problems was admittedly due in some measure to the detailed and penetrating clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of creative processes, for which no rational formulation as yet exists."
Author: Pauli

33. "Combat duty is strenuous and physically demanding, and I'm not the first person to notice that men and women are built differently. And while many will argue that women will only be allowed into combat arms units under the same requirements as their male counterparts, count me as skeptical."
Author: Pete Hegseth

34. "I was east of Skepticism and north of Faith, with an unsettled compass and variable winds. But I could offer up a prayer as well as the next man, and leave it to Heaven to judge the result."
Author: Robert Charles Wilson

35. "Journalists, who are skeptical to begin with, simply do not like to be lied to or made fools of."
Author: Roger Mudd

36. "Having faith in the existence of the paranormal, like faith in anything, means believing that it can stand up to honest skepticism."
Author: Ryan Buell

37. "So this has nothing to do with my telling you I was taking Emily out here today?" she asked skeptically. "Now, that would be too easy, wouldn't it?" "Everything is easy for you, Sawyer." "Not everything."
Author: Sarah Addison Allen

38. "You have opposition to love?" "Not opposition so much as skepticism. I make it a practice not to believe in things I cannot see."
Author: Sarah MacLean

39. "Skeptics," he said, "suffer from the skeptics' disease—the problem of being right too often."
Author: Scott Adams

40. "Two diametrically opposed points of view concerning religion in the West are to bee seen among Muslims. Some consider all Westerners to be Christians, with the small Jewish minority being of course an exception, and often refer to Westerners as "those Christians" as if the West were of the Middle Ages when the Crusades were carried out and when Western civilization lived in what has been called the Age of Faith. Another group of Muslims hold the opposite view that all Westerners are materialists or agnostics and skeptics and in fact there is no religion among the Westerners. Now it is essential to insist that both of these views are false."
Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr

41. "The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil."
Author: Simone Weil

42. "I was perplexed by the failure of teachers at school to address what seemed the most urgent matter of all: the bewildering, stomach-churning insecurity of being alive. The standard subjects of history, geography, mathematics, and English seemed perversely designed to ignore the questions that really mattered. As soon as I had some inkling of what 'philosophy' meant, I was puzzled as to why we were not taught it. And my skepticism about religion only grew as I failed to see what the vicars and priests I encountered gained from their faith. They struck me either as insincere, pious, and aloof or just bumblingly good-natured. (p. 10)"
Author: Stephen Batchelor

43. "Questioning our own motives, and our own process, is critical to a skeptical and scientific outlook. We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations." - Steven Novella"
Author: Steven Novella

44. "People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one s promises reducing a partner s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous."
Author: Steven Pinker

45. "Everybody's saying, be skeptical of Wikipedia. That is true. They should also be skeptical of everything. We should all be critical consumers of the media."
Author: Sue Gardner

46. "Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press."
Author: Thomas Griffith

47. "I encourage active skepticism - when people are being skeptical because they're trying to identify the best course of action. They're trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people."
Author: Tim Ferriss

48. "My skepticism is strong, but my curiosity is stronger."
Author: Veronica Roth

49. "Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt."
Author: Vita Sackville West

50. "Among [Applewhite's] other teachings was the classic cult specialty of developing disdain for anyone outside of the Heaven's Gate commune. Applewhite flattered his would-be alien flock that they were an elite elect far superior to the non-initiated humans whom he considered to be deluded zombies.[...]Applewhite effectively fed his paranoid persecution complex to his followers to ensure blind loyalty to the group and himself while fostering alienation from the mundane world. This paradoxical superior/fearful attitude towards "Them" (i.e., anyone who is not one of "Us") is one of the simplest means of hooking even the most skeptical curiosity seeker into the solipsistic netherworld of a [mentally unbalanced] leader's insecure and threatened worldview."
Author: Zeena Schreck

Skeptic Quotes Pictures