Quotes About Skepticism

To a liar, the most dangerous individual is the person who catches lies but doesn't say anything about it. Then the liar isn't sure which lies are compromised.

Never trust anyone who wants what you've got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones.

I'm rarely invited to start-up parties, but who cares about their trinkets and apps anyway?

Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed even if they speak the truth.

I'm one of those old cynics that thinks, whoever you vote for, the government always gets in.

Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.

Doing a movie about Steve Jobs is just generally a provocative thing to do, whoever does it, and it begs a lot of questioning and skepticism only in that, what is this going to be? What am I going to be looking at? And curiosity as well. I think that's all positive in any film, because you want people to be curious about it.

The people, as much as it's fun to hate us, they need us. They need good, strong, skeptical journalists to be covering whoever it is - whether it's Barack Obama or President Donald Trump.

I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

I can't enter into politico-social subjects with any interest, for on the whole, I see that things are in a muddle, and I have no power or vocation to set them right in ever so little a degree.

A close friend of mine described me as a radical pragmatist. I embrace this no-nonsense distinction wholeheartedly. It is a character trait that matches the sense of myself I've had from as far back as I can remember. I am not one who goes in much for magical thinking. I don't believe in destiny, fate, or things like divine guidance, either.

Milkmen seem so wholesome, and there's no way anybody can be that wholesome.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

People who look for the first time through a microscope say, 'Now I see this, and then I see that,' and even a skilled observer can be fooled. On these observations I have spent more time than many will believe, but I have done them with joy, and I have taken no notice of those who have said, 'Why take so much trouble,' and, 'What good is it?'

I think even if I did the research mentioned above, it would be a total waste of money because if those people don't believe in the testimonials, they won't believe in the research at all. They would say that I made it all up. So why waste money?

Ray is very secretive about his ideas - why not, the times that the Kinks have been ripped off, especially in the early years, it makes you a little bit cautious about telling anybody what you're doing. And that's understandable.

Russia's assertiveness in global affairs is something I look upon with great concern, which we need to address with eyes wide open and a healthy degree of skepticism.

Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.

I try to write stories that will attract younger readers and make them feel part of a wider readership. I do not feel able to write books that are about, or even for, teenagers; and I am inclined to be suspicious of books which 'target' them.

When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.

I've consciously avoided actually reading anything about Wikipedia.