Quotes About Skepticism

I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news ... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.

I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?

I feel a lot of people don't know what high school is - including those who are in it. My material is provided to give them some perspective. People are stupid. They never stop to question things. They just accept. Can you imagine a nation who never questions the validity of cheerleaders and pom-poms?

I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization — you can't just swallow it whole.

Descartes had somehow managed to use skepticism in service of orthodoxy; he preserved crucial shards of church doctrine—the immortal soul, for starters—while buying intellectual space for the physical sciences to continue the march toward knowledge.

Philosophy couldn't emancipate the mind, but technology just might. Google has set out to succeed where Descartes failed, except that it has jettisoned all the philosophical questions that rattled around in his head. Where Descartes emphasized skepticism and doubt, Google is never plagued by second-guessing. It has turned the liberation of the brain into an engineering challenge—an exercise that often fails to ask basic questions about the human implications of the project.

Don't be too optimistic, the light at the end of the tunnel might be a train.

Incluso ni siquiera tu desconfianza hacia los demás es tan grande como la que yo tengo en mí... (p. 74)

Itseään on koeteltava ihmiskuntaa vastaan. Se opettaa epäilijää epäilemään ja uskovaa uskomaan.

Ali svi se slažu u tome da se ne podižu lakomislene optužbe i da se sud, kad jedanput nekog optuži i kad je uvjeren u krivicu optuženog, vrlo teÅ¡ko može razuvjeriti. »TeÅ¡ko?« upita slikar i diže ruku uvis. »Sud se nikada ne mo?e razuvjeriti. Kad bih ovdje na platnu naslikao sve sudije redom i kad biste se Vi pred tim platnom branili imali biste viÅ¡e uspjeha nego pred pravim sudom« »

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.

I was not surprised by the results of the Horizon experiments, but I remain willing to observe and consider any and all other tests that are done under similarly precise conditions.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

I think criticism, or a critical engagement with history, has a good deal to do with a willingness to be fooled.

You need to be curious, competitive, creative, stubborn, self-confident, skeptical, patient and be lucky to win a Nobel.

When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn't any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena.

There is film of the Americans landing on the moon. Does that mean the moon shot really happened? In the film, the Yanqui flag is flying straight out. So, is there wind on the moon?

I don't trust Santa Barbara as far as I can spit. I am afraid that if I went back there, it's possible that I could be run through their system, their judicial system, and wind up in some county jail where I could be killed and I'm not gonna take that chance.

Skeptical of strangers, lobstermen are keepers of secrets, working in the howling wind and hot sun, the icy snows, and bewildering fog. When I was growing up, the lore was that they had the right to shoot anyone who messed with their traps.

Sure, I considered myself an anarchist; I considered myself - I still am, obviously - distrustful of the government. But I also understand the virtues of civility or democracy and kindness, of course. I wasn't throwing garbage cans through shop windows.

Wine is a treacherous friend who you must always be on guard for.

Most pilots learn, when they pin on their wings and go out and get in a fighter, especially, that one thing you don't do, you don't believe anything anybody tells you about an airplane.

If you heard 40 times in a day that Newt Gingrich takes the wings off of butterflies, eventually you'd believe it.

There's no pleasing the British, or winning their favor. They simply hate politicians. All politicians. Hatred goes with politicians like mint sauce with lamb. It's as old as Parliaments.