Quotes About Skepticism

The imagination is a cynic.

Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts. (Peirce 1992, pp. 28–9)

The great sea makes one a great sceptic.

When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him.

I don't believe in conspiracies. Guys will say anything to get laid.

Ray looks over to see what Carlos is talking about. He has good control of his face. He's done this before. Ray never looks shocked, but the momentary spike in his heartbeat and his pupils dilating tell me all I need to know.

No. You open it." "You think I put a bomb in there? Maybe snakes? Maybe a snake bomb?

If Jesus, Jesse James, and a herd of pink robot unicorns strolled in walking on water, this bunch wouldn't even look up.

Our country needs more tough critics like you who don't just swallow the hype like everyone else. So many writers might as well be on the payroll — be it entertainment industry or government.

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister--corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

The more someone assures you that everything is okay, the more you can be assured that it's not.

Beware the stranger offering gifts, as true for man as it is for fish

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?

I had my own skeptic's thoughts about God and free will, but that was a discussion for another time. The idea of human beings in power acting out of anything except self-interest, however, was absurd to me. "Are you being naive?" I asked her. "No

Don't trust anyone, not even your best friends. Love them, but never trust them completely. At critical times, they can be influenced to do things you don't want.

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bull shit.

Who you gonna believe, bitch? Me? or your lying eyes?

The difference between the thinking of the paranoid patient and the scientist comes from the latter's ability and willingness to test out his fantasies or grandiose conceptualizations through the systems of checks and balances science has established—and to give up those schemes that are shown not to be valid on the basis of these scientific checks.

and you don't trust him to love you in a way you would enjoy

Don't bother. You never mean it anyway, not really

When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.

You can't trust the government to do anything right-except, of course, to conspire and cover up. Then it becomes diabolically efficient. The very people who are wildest for government conspiracies are often the same people who believe the government is incapable of delivering the mail efficiently.

When whiskey was supposed to be taxed at $2 a gallon and sold for $1.25 a gallon, it did not take advanced math to guess something was amiss.

Good God. Men everywhere.