Quotes About Skepticism

To be a person who sees a political ad on television and takes the statements in it as fact, how can you exist in this world? How is it you're not robbed daily by charlatans who knock at your door?

I take it you don't believe in love at first sight." "Does anyone over the age of thirteen? Do you?" "I don't, no," Darcy said. "But I don't rule out for others what I haven't experienced firsthand.

I take it you don't believe in love at first sight.' 'Does anyone over the age of thirteen? Do you?' 'I don't, no,' Darcy said. 'But I don't rule out for others what I haven't experienced first hand.

It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say 'if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,' we might believe them; but were they to cry 'if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,' we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.

No creo en el mundo, ni en el dinero, ni en el progreso, ni en el futuro de nuestra civilización. Si es que la humanidad tiene un futuro, tendrá que hacerse muy diferente de como es ahora.

The human consistency and dignity one has been led to expect from one's fellow-men seem actually nonexistent

I don't believe in the world, not in money, nor in advancement, nor in the future of our civilization.

I have observed that it is no longer possible for one young man to speak unwarily to another not known to him, except in certain sections of the South and West, and certainly not with a book in his hand.

For example, she did not mind at all if Christendom should be done for, stove in, kaput, screwed up once and all. She did not mind that the Christers were like everybody else, if not worse.

Like the boy who cried wolf, or the football coach whose pep talks wear thin, the pope or president who turns every cause into a holy one, every enemy into a Hitler, every conflict into a genocide, may soon find his audience rolling its eyes and sinking into the very cynicism he hopes to surmount.

I think my blunt and contrary nature helps my science, because I don't simply accept things just because other people believe it

You have to remain critically vigilant." Question every premise, challenge conventional wisdom, and never accept the truth of something merely because everyone else views it as obvious. Resist being credulous.

survey of all that Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves … Sceptic after sceptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, but he got the last laugh every time. This book makes it all

His embrace, however, did not extend to people who were pretentious or pompous (with the exception of Wiener). When he thought a speaker was spouting nonsense, he would stand up and ask what seemed to be innocent but were in fact devilish questions. After a few moments, the speaker would realize he had been deflated and Licklider would sit down. "He didn't like poseurs or pretenders," Tracy recalled. "He was never mean, but he slyly pricked people's pretensions.

It was a grand triumph but not one easily understood. The skeptical Silverstein came up to Eddington and said that people believed that only three scientists in the world understood general relativity. He had been told that Eddington was one of them. The shy Quaker said nothing. Don't be modest, Eddington, said Silverstein. Replied Eddington, On the contrary, I'm just wondering who the third might be.

As Diderot once quipped, a deist is someone who has not lived long enough to become an atheist.

All white people are enemies until proved otherwise, and this applies to black intellectuals, all of us are enemies to the people until we prove otherwise.

Certainly, quoth Athelstane, women are the least to be trusted of all animals, monks and abbots excepted.

Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination as easily as the actual scenery.

One of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, 'I cannot believe my eyes!' Why particularly should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your emotion if you like - but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery.

Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see one aspect of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't.

Yeah, trust the fuckhead.