Quotes About Skepticism

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.

Hay ciertas extrañas ocasiones y coyunturas en este raro asunto entremezclado que llamamos vida, en que uno toma el entero universo por una enorme broma pesada, aunque no llega a discernirle su gracia sino vagamente, y tiene algo más que sospechas de que la broma no es a expensas sino de él mismo.

The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity; Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all.

Most people who have made big career changes have heard loved ones tell them, "You're out of your mind." Sabotage is not their intention, but a shared history has entrenched certain expectations, and reinventing oneself can amount to breaking the implicit "contract." People who have quit smoking, lost weight, or gotten divorced are familiar with the mixed reactions of friends, who see the change as loss.

es propio de gente cuerda y política, porque bien claro está que si ellas no lo quisiesen de veras nunca hubieran sido robadas.

and said to him: 'Eumaios, this is amazing, this dog that lies on the dunghill. The shape of him is splendid, and yet I cannot be certain whether he had the running speed to go with this beauty, or is just one of the kind of table dog that gentlemen 310 keep, and it is only for show that their masters care for them.

I don't like either party. I believe even the best politicians can be self-serving hypocrites.

History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history--while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance--might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.

It has spread among skilled workers, white-collar workers, professionals; for the first time in the nation's history, perhaps, both the lower classes and the middle classes, the prisoners and the guards, were disillusioned with the system.

Mencken, the acerbic social critic of the 1920s, put it: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

tending to atheisme.

1) Never trust a cop in a raincoat. 2) Beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway. 3) If asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again. 4) Never give your real name. 5) If ever asked to look at yourself, don't look. 6) Never do anything the person standing in front of you can't understand. 7) Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.

There is a beautiful consistency about Buzzard; he is a porcupine among men, with his quills always flared. If he won a new car with a raffle ticket bought in his name by some momentary girlfriend, he would recognize it at once as a trick to con him out of a license fee. He would denounce the girl as a hired slut, beat up the raffle sponsor, and trade off the car for five hundred Seconals and a gold-handled cattle prod.

Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception.

That would require faith. I do not beliebe in faith. I believe it exists but I do not believe it works. I don't know what the rules are here; I can't risk throwing everything away on a long shot.

Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should not believe. Present a statement to him in flagrant contradiction to all Christian doctrine and he could be persuaded to agree on its good sense, unless he remembered it was the sort of thing of which pyres are made for the incautious.

I (John Stone) have never had any great desire to abolish poverty or save fallen women; I am, and always have been, deeply suspicious of those who wish to do these things. They normally cause more harm than good and, in my experience, their desire for power, to control others, is very much greater than that of any businessman. p 455 Stone's Fall

I knew salesmen, they made good murderers.

He's not a bad guy really, except he's so crooked, you shake hands with him you better count your fingers afterwards.

I am allergic to almost every form of international agency, conference or committee.

Mathis had been unable to enlighten him. 'Unless you have bought him yourself,' he had said, 'you must assume that he has been bought by the other side. All concierges are venal. It is not their fault. They are trained to regard all hotel guests except maharajahs as potential cheats and thieves. They have as much concern for your comfort or well-being as crocodiles.

Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity. It was often the mark of a cad. Bond

Despite NRA misdirection and outright lies, it's not a slippery slope. The only slippery slope is with those who buy that argument, who slip from the fear of regulation down the rabbit hole of paranoia. We

He never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom from the scheming of a gloomy god.