Quotes About Skepticism

Bent Bender "Well, if God doesn't exist, who's laughing at us?" —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov One day Lecia rings me up. Tawdry, she says. An adjective meaning crude or trashy or otherwise unseemly, I say. Talk to me. Mother's sleeping with Harold, she says, meaning Daddy's pill-popping nurse, crashing of late in the spare room. Never happen, I say. That man has got to be gay. Happened, she says.

I put just a teaspoon of catshit in your sandwich, but you didn't notice it at all." To my mind, a small bit of catshit equals a catshit sandwich, unless I know where the catshit is and can eat around it.

way." The giant scratched his head and looked doubtful.

Please beware, came his reply, There are a lot of people who believe that just because we don't have an explanation for something, it's quantum mechanics.

Julie Rousseau said that the researchers told her they find some of her explanations far-fetched and do not consider the case closed. It is interesting to come across people who feel that a ghost communicating via a spell-checker is less far-fetched than a software glitch.

I am skeptical, only because I have read the 1978 paper by researchers at Pennsylvania State University who tried to warn away white-tailed deer by erecting roadside plywood cutouts of deer rear ends with tails a-flagging. On some, the raised tail was painted white; on others, an actual deer tail had been nailed in place. Sadly, because who wouldn't want to see our nation's highways lined with plywood deer asses with decomposing tails, none of it worked.

By the end of the conference, there was a sense that removing the junk is actually possible. I've gone from being totally skeptical to thinking maybe something will work, Kessler says. We can bring things down; it's just going to cost a lot.

Waar eindigde zijn geloof en waar begonnen de komedie en de berekening?

The skeptical note in Roldugin's "He really thought he knew something …" is as clear and unmistakable in the original Russian as it is in the English translation, but it seems that both Roldugin and Putin, who certainly vetted the quote, missed it.)

the whole point of science, the whole thrust of the Enlightenment, is the rejection of arguments from authority.

Never trust someone who isn't miserable at least half of the time.

Never trust someone who isn't miserable at least half of the time. That's my motto.

Never trust someone who isn't miserable at least half the time. That's my motto.

Many humans live their entire lives without questioning the 'truths' they've been told.

You can never trust the heart of another?

Women fear that men will have their way and then slither away. Men fear that women will come back and boil their bunnies.

QUESTION EVERYTHING; STAND BACK, I'M GOING TO TRY SCIENCE!; I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN.

What tinfoil? he asked.

Periodically someone would encourage her to walk through the woods or try out the mountain bike. Stevie viewed these offers with grave suspicion and declined.

Like what?" he said, giving me a sideways glance, slipping in the process. "Saying that they're lucky.

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. "Reason," Dr. Pritchett had told them, "is the most naive of all superstitions.

a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him.

Long-haired preachers come out every night And they tell you what's wrong and what's right And when you ask them for something to eat They tell you in voices so sweet: You will eat by and by, in that glorious place in the sky Work and pray, live on hay, you will get pie in sky when you die. That's a lie!

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.