Quotes About Skepticism

You shouldn't give him a ride, Grace!" Meme snapped. "He's likely to strangle you and dump your body in the lake." "Is this true?" I asked Callahan. "I was thinking about it," he admitted.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm a bleeping idiot.

He's had some drug and alcohol issues, but he's getting clean now." Oh, fuckety fucking McFuckster. Not bad enough that he still had a chip on his shoulder. He was a drug addict, too. And lived just down the road. "Think he's dangerous?

Please trust me." I narrowed my eyes at her, instinctively looking for an ulterior motive, but found only genuine concern and a small gleam of excitement in her eyes. For some reason I wanted to trust her. Well, crap. Day, Kristen (2014-09-22). Forsaken (Book #1) (Daughters of the Sea) (p. 27). Kristen Day Books. Kindle Edition.

Asking yourself a question, that's how resistance begins. And then ask that very question to someone else. —REMCO CAMPERT

The truth is, we now live in a world in which everything is politicized,

Of course, that a sentence is utterly fallacious has never prevented it from being believed by large numbers of people and, on occasion, used as a foundational principle for a comprehensive philosophy of life.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back

Evidence that contradicts the ruling belief system is held to extraordinary standards, while evidence that entrenches it is uncritically accepted.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

Has Solan addled your brain?

Don't trust to those who promise to make you rich in a day. Usually they are either mad or rogues!

Non ti fidare, ragazzo mio, di quelli che promettono di farti ricco dalla mattina alla sera. Per il solito, o sono matti o imbroglioni!

The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.

Science is born from this act of humility: not trusting blindly in our past knowledge and our intuition. Not believing what everyone says. Not having faith in the accumulated knowledge of our fathers and grandfathers. We learn nothing if we think that we already know the essentials, if we assume that they were written in a book or known by the elders of the tribe. The centuries in which people had faith in what they believed were the centuries in which little new was learned.

To the very last, the desire to debate, to understand more. To the very last, doubt. This permanent doubt, the deep source of science.

I don't suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don't trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It's a sure sign that they don't really know anyone.

I drink the darkness of disbelief.