Quotes About Skepticism

My parents were distrustful of the outside world. They didn't think much good came out of it... The outside world was this strange place that was not so much dangerous as not as interesting as what went on in the house.

Soon the child learns that there are strangers, and ceases to be a child.

People said, 'When the Russians come, they will give us gas, double our pensions and make our life better.

If you'd tried to explain to me what a butterfly was back in the middle of Finland, I'd have grunted sceptically. Then torn your throat open and supped deep on your warm, life-giving blood.

in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.' – David Hume, Scottish philosopher

Lazlo doesn't believe in seatbelts. He says they show a serious lack of faith in a driver.

The American people are suckers," Nixon said. "Gray Middle America—they're suckers.

Don't use skepticism as a thinly veiled excuse for inaction or remaining in your comfort zone.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack."—George S. Patton

A hypocrite is a person who—but who isn't? —DON MARQUIS I

A good general strategy is reasoning counterfactually: if someone tells you that X is true, ask yourself—(i) what would they say if X really is true, and (ii) what would they say if X is false? If the answer to (i) and (ii) is "they will say roughly what they just said now," then their words provided you with exactly zero information. In general, know when it's really important not to take people's words at 100 percent face value.

I'm not sure how much the formal study of philosophy matters, but I think the fundamental philosophical question is one that's important for all of us, and it's always this question of 'What do people agree merely by convention, and what is the truth?

I'm very much in favor of learning. I'm much more skeptical of credentialing or the abstraction called 'education.

Miller, BJ: "'Don't believe everything you think.

I don't like the word 'education' because it is such an extraordinary abstraction. I'm very much in favor of learning. I'm much more skeptical of credentialing or the abstraction called 'education.' So

Interrogate the information shared with you by others, and use it as a way to make up your own mind, not a path to follow.

Whole areas of my mind, I have come to realize, distrust other areas.

I'm an optimist in spite of a lifetime of evidence to prove that living optimistically is likely to be as disappointing as taking astrological advice,

The weatherman had said it might rain, so everyone was sure it wouldn't. In L.A., where the weather is the same three hundred and fifty-five days a year, the weatherman is right about fifteen percent of the time, roughly the same average as the handicappers at Santa Anita, astrologers, and the guys who predict lower gasoline prices. Faith in the U.S. Meteorological Service does not run high in Los Angeles.

Think for yourself and question authority.

question authority

Think for yourself. Question authority.

Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference.

It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult.