Skeptical Quotes

“I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--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. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“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.”
― Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

“The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man!

“A skeptical man with a credo, 'Seeing is believing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'I can't believe what I just saw'.
Then the other man with different credo,
'Blessed are they who believe without seeing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'This is blasphemy, sinful and evil'.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“It sometimes requires ignorance and arrogance to know something for sure.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I am afraid that those comments go back to the late 80's. At that time I was a skeptic — the argument based on Koch's postulates to try to distinguish between cause and association. … Today I would regard the success of the many antiviral agents which lower the virus titers (to be expected) and also resolve the failure of the immune system (only expected if the virus is the cause of the failure) as a reasonable proof of the causation argument.”
― Walter Gilbert

“...I believe there is a legitimate aim of transcendence that is more modest and perhaps more realistic. We may not be able to rule out the skeptical possibility, and we may not be able to ground our normal capacity for understanding on something in which we can have even greater confidence; but it may still be possible to show how we can reasonably retain our natural confidence in the exercise of understanding, in spite of the apparent contingencies of our nature and formation. The hope is not to discover a foundation that makes our knowledge unassailably secure but to find a way of understanding ourselves that is not radically self-undermining, and that does not require us to deny the obvious. The aim would be to offer a plausible picture of how we fit into the world.

Even in this more modest enterprise both theism and naturalistic reductionism fall short. Theism does not offer a sufficiently substantial explanation of our capacities, and naturalism does not offer a sufficiently reassuring one.”
― Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False

“People will say,"there's heaven and hell", and they take it so serious that they look so sorrowful with penitence. I would rather ask them to show me the route that leads to heaven or hell.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“In my series, five percent presented self-diagnosed. In most cases, this was not believed by the initial clinician.

I had the following unnerving experience. Prior to my first multiple personality disorder case, I did not think the condition existed. I saw a young woman who claimed to have multiple personality disorder, and dismissed her claim. She never mentioned it again. Seven years later, while doing research in multiple personality disorder, I asked her to be a control subject for a new multiple personality disorder screening protocol, since I believed she was a medication-controlled paranoid schizophrenic. A protector personality rapidly took over, cursed at me for disbelieving the patient in the first place, introduced me to other personalities, resumed control, and chastized me vehemently at great length. Thereafter, she left, never to return.”
― Richard P. Kluft, Childhood Antecedents of Multiple Personality Disorders

“I had no idea why I was being so patronising. Perhaps I couldn't believe true love existed at our age. Our classmates who claimed to be in love were mistaking excitement and fuzzy feelings for love.”
― Clarissa Goenawan, Rainbirds

“Hmm” is all Margot says, and the skeptical look on her face makes me want to x her right off the screen.”
― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Frankly, the whole concept was a little too New Age—y for me.”
― Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This

“Orthodox belief leads to all sort of skeptical paradoxes”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“An agnostic is a creature that is religiously skeptical whenever it is told that God exists … or that He doesn’t.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“..."Suzette Boon also become very much involved [in dissocation]... She was in my office and was a family therapist, and when I left for a yearlong sabbatical in Isreal, she took over my patients. And the interesting thing is that she was very skeptical about what I was seeing, while now she's one of the real experts in Europe and has done marvelous research with regard to the diagnosis of the dissociative disorders!”
― Onno van der Hart, Coping With Loss: The Therapeutic Use of Leave-Taking Rituals

“Sceptical Ketman is widely disseminated throughout intellectual circles. One argues that humanity does not know how to handle its knowledge or how to resolve the problems of production and division of goods.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“We can reach a place in life where a relationship would be nice, but our life style is already nice. If we mixed the two would they blend perfectly? We’re skeptical, that we’re reaching out to past failures? Having the strength and confidence to leave any relationship allows us to take a chance.”
― Ron Baratono

“To fight for greater things is the essence of our humanity. Therefore, to fall to the skepticism of those for whom the essence of the fight is lost is to lose the greater fight for the essence of our humanity.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Don’t believe the skeptics. Rather, be skeptical of their skepticism.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“A dreamer need not be bound by the pessimism of those too frightened to dream.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough