Quotes About Skepticism

Someone who claims to know what happens after death is probably someone we should be suspicious of -- they might be a ghost.

I don't think our death ray is working. I'm standing right in it, and I'm not dead yet.

Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.

I ain't saying you're a liar, because that wouldn't be polite. But I'll tell you this, ma'am. If I loved liars, I'd hug you to death.

I do not believe in my death.

Consensus is not always good; disagreement not always bad. If you do happen to agree, don't take that agreement—in itself—as proof that you are right. Never stop doubting.

And yet this stagnation is a big reason why I am an optimistic skeptic. We know that in so much of what people want to predict—politics, economics, finance, business, technology, daily life—predictability exists, to some degree, in some circumstances. But there is so much else we do not know.

Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant.

A skeptical world judges the truth of what we say by the proof of how we live. Today's activists may be the best evangelists.

To gain the hearing of a post-Christian society already skeptical about religion will require careful strategy. We must, in Jesus' words, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I fear that our clumsy pronouncements, our name-calling, our stridency — ?in short, our lack of grace — ?has proved so damaging that society will no longer look to us for the guidance it needs.

However heart-stopping his smile and however honest his eyes, however much I think of him as a boy fired to greatness by his own ambition, I cannot trust him.

He is a very cautious man, and he believes wholeheartedly in nothing.

somebody's mouth without a detour of any kind." She's looking at me when she says it, though. It isn't that I don't like fried rabbit. Like it fine. I just don't want to bite down on buckshot, is all, and I'm checking each piece. "I looked that rabbit over good, Marty, and you won't find any buckshot in that

Caroline took one look at the box and figured Wally had given her a present in return—something even grosser than cat vomit. She took it to her room, then had second thoughts and took it out to the garage instead. Maybe she should call the bomb squad to open it. It was probably something that would explode in her face.

L'adulte ne croit pas au Père Noël. Il vote.

Je n'aimais pas poser les questions qui poussaient mes interlocuteurs à se moquer en soupirant de notre crédulité d'Occidentaux survitaminés et sous-informés. (p. 18)

It is the man who can't be trusted who does not trust others because he judges them by himself.

Nuts grow on trees?" the spider inquired dubiously.

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.

Misanthropy develops when without art one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable and then a little later discovers him to be bad and unreliable ... and when it happens to someone often ... he ends up ... hating everyone

Arguments, like men, are often pretenders.

Coloro che sono capaci di vedere oltre le ombre e le bugie della propria cultura non saranno mai capiti, tanto meno creduti, dalle masse.

For nobody is curious, who isn't malevolent.