Quotes About Skepticism

I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

I do not think that the radio waves I have discovered will have any practical application.

All knowledge degenerates into probability.

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.

By skepticism . . . we arrive first at suspension of judgment, and second at freedom from disturbance.

Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.

Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion

Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.

As a scientist, I don't believe anything. Science shouldn't use the word belief. There are things more likely and less likely. Science can say nothing with absolute certainty.

I don't believe in natural science.

If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.

Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism--and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.

In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes.

For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

I don't believe in mathematics.