Quotes About Skepticism

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

Life is all about detecting and then avoiding bullshit.

The way Mr. Ronan had acted seemed to be of a piece with this woman's behaviour. I felt a need to see where she was leading. It was none of her business, so I lied.

When asked about how he could have offered the Warren Report, full of inconsistencies, to the American people with a straight face, Dulles is reported to have said, "The American people don't read.

I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." – Dr. Carl Jung

I hear a but in there somewhere

OK," Josh said evenly, "I've seen men made of mud, I guess I can accept spying rats. Do they talk?" he wondered aloud. Don't be ridiculous," Flamel snapped, "They're rats." Josh really didn't think it was a ridiculous suggestion.

But what science cannot understand, it dismisses.

But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

There is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal. There is only the natural, the normal, and mysteries we have yet to explain.

By now the valley of the shadow of doubt was overrunneth with skepticism, so God became angry, so angry that God lost His temper and cursed the first humans, telling them to go forth and multiply themselves (but not in those words). But the humans took God literally and now there are six billion of them.

Of the various tools taught in school, science and thinking skeptically about all claims should be near the top.

In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.

Burden of Proof, or, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Photographs and videos are often misperceived and can be easily doctored, and lights in the sky have many prosaic explanations: aerial flares, lighted balloons, experimental aircraft, helicopters, clouds, swamp gas, or even the planet Venus, which, if you are driving on an undulating highway away from city lights, really does appear to be a bright light following your car.

I'm a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

We want to be open-minded enough to accept radical new ideas when they occasionally come along, but we don't want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out.

What is the probability that Yahweh is the one true god, and Amon Ra, Aphrodite, Apollo, Baal, Brahma, Ganesha, Isis, Mithra, Osiris, Shiva, Thor, Vishnu, Wotan, Zeus, and the other 986 gods are false gods? As skeptics like to say, everyone is an atheist about these gods; some of us just go one god further.

The typical Spetsnaz soldier is a skeptic, a cynic, and a pessimist. He believes in the depravity of human nature, and knows – from his own experience – that, in extreme conditions, man becomes a beast. He does not believe in justice, goodness, or humanity. He exists in a state of complete freedom – in which he fears nobody, trusts no one at all, and would not ask anyone for anything. Especially mercy.

Design with skepticism, and you will achieve resilience.

Design with skepticism, and you will achieve resilience. Ask, "What can system X do to hurt me?" and then design a way to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge whatever wrench your supposed ally throws.

I asked her, 'Did you like Sadie?' Juliet put down the book she was reading. 'I liked her the way you like a hurt dog,' she said. 'What do you mean?' I asked her. 'You feel sorry for it, and you want to help it, but you're not sure it won't bite you when you're not looking,' Juliet said.

People always say they want to hear the truth, but they really don't

I don't know why anyone wants to get married," said Burke. "I think the whole thing was cooked up by lawyers so they can get rich off of divorce.