Quotes About Skepticism

In a curious twist, I realize I always knew TV news seemed full of shit, but I never knew it was, in fact, full of shit.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

It was a maxim with Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—"Always suspect everybody."

What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!

He had used the word [humbug] in its Pickwickian sense.

I don't believe there's no sich a person!

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.

The only difference between us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, or philanthropy - never mind the name - is that we know it is all meaningless, and say so, while they know it equally and will never say so.

The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story.

Mr. Guppy suspects everybody....of entertaining... Sinister designs upon him....he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, where there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary

It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it.

Mr. Dennis received this part of the scheme with a wry face, observing that as a general principle he objected to women altogether, as being unsafe and slippery persons on whom there was no calculating with any certainty, and who were never in the same mind for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch.

There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him.

Because we are lied to all the time, in ways so routine they are beneath conscious notice, even the most direct lies are losing their power to shock us.

To put it in more shocking terms, it doesn't matter if the skeptics are right or not, because the assumptions on which the debate is based are already enough to doom us to a dystopian future.

People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.

The method of doubt must be applied to civilization; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence, and its permanence.

Everything I eat has been proved by some writer or other to be a deadly poison. Everything I don't eat has been proved indispensable to life!

...but a skepticism pointing to the past for its confirmation whispers to us that metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.