Quotes About Skepticism

instead of doubting yourself, have faith in yourself. Instead of doubting the truth, doubt the lies. Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

Be skeptical because most of what you hear isn't true. You know that humans speak with symbols, and that symbols aren't the truth. Symbols are only the truth because we agree, not because they are really the truth.

The truth doesn't need you to believe it; the truth simply is, and it survives whether you believe it or not. Lies need you to believe them. If you don't believe lies, they don't survive your skepticism, and they simply disappear.

Don't believe everything you learned! Not believing yourself is a huge advantage, because most of what you learned is not the truth. Everything you know, your whole reality, is nothing but symbols. But you are not that bunch of symbols that talk in your head. You know that, and that's why you are skeptical and you don't believe yourself.

No inventes en la gente lo que no tiene.

Let me have a look.' Woland stretched out his hand palm uppermost. 'Unfortunately I cannot show it to you,' replied the master, 'because I burned it in my stove.' 'I'm sorry but I don't believe you,' said Woland. 'You can't have done. Manuscripts don't burn.

Unfortunately, I cannot do that,' replied the master, 'because I burned it in the stove.' 'Forgive me, but I don't believe you,' Woland replied, 'that cannot be: manuscripts don't burn.

Querido mío, yo odio a los hombres para no despreciarlos, pues de lo contrario la vida sería una farsa demasiado asquerosa.

The girl was grateful to the young man for every bit of flattery; she wanted to linger for a moment in its warmth and so she said, 'You're very good at lying.' 'Do I look like a liar?' 'You look like you enjoy lying to women,' said the girl, and into her words there crept unawares a touch of the old anxiety, because she really did believe that her young man enjoyed lying to women.

Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.

Optimism is the opium of the people.

When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true/sincere.

Human life is bounded by two chasms: fanaticism on one side, absolute skepticism on the other.

J'en arrivai finalement à les croire, incapable que j'étais d'imaginer (c'était au-dessus de mon audace) que tous les autres pouvaient se tromper, que la Révolution elle-même, l'esprit du temps, se trompait, tandis que moi, individu, j'avais raison.

Scepticism does not abolish the world, it turns it into questions.

Y no me importa que la alegría haya pasado de moda, a lo mejor soy una idiota, pero los otros también son unos idiotas, con esa moda suya del escepticismo, no tengo ningún motivo para cambiar mi idiotez por la de ellos, no quiero que mi vida se parta por la mitad, quiero que sea una sola vida, una sola desde el principio hasta el final...

I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature.

Strang had already perfected his talent for telling other people just what they wanted to hear, so a dose of skepticism is in order for any belief he professed—a double dose for the ones he professed passionately.

You can't believe everything you hear, but it's fun to repeat it anyway.

Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below

Ministers and merchants love nobody.

The laws I love; the lawyers I suspect.

And after that, you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer.

Cynicism places the cynic at the center seat of judgement with the self appointed authority to criticize and condemn.