Quotes About Sceptics

There is every reason to believe that sceptics and non-conformists exist in every human society; what varies is how others react to them.

we find the university dominated by theology of another kind – a godless theology, to be sure, but one no less insistent upon unquestioning submission to doctrine, and no less ardent in its pursuit of heretics, sceptics and debunkers. People are no longer burned at the stake for their views: they simply fail to get tenure, or, if they are students, they flunk the course. But the effect is similar, namely to reinforce an orthodoxy in which nobody really believes.

Sextus [Empericus] identifies three different types of philosophy. There are Dogmatists, who think that they know the truth. There are Academic Sceptics, who think the truth can never be known. Then there are Sceptics, who retain an open mind, not thinking truth is yet discovered, but prepared to accept that it might be.

Progress isn't achieved by preachers or guardians of morality, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics

When there is change, there are always sceptics who think it won't work. I am sure someone at some point thought the iPhone wouldn't take off.

and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil communities.

To endow a man with faith is to multiply his strength tenfold. The great events of history have been brought about by obscure believers, who have had little beyond their faith in their favour. It is not by the aid of the learned or of philosophers, and still less of sceptics, that have been built up the great religions which have swayed the world, or the vast empires which have spread from one hemisphere to the other.

When we're interested in something, everything around us appears to refer to it (the mystics call these phenomena 'signs', the sceptics 'coincidence', and psychologists 'concentrated focus', although I've yet to find out what term historians would use).

Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest sceptics.

There was no sign of Plato, and I was told later that he had gone to live in his Republic , where he was cheerfully submitting to his own Laws . [...] None of the Stoics were present. Rumour had it that they were still clambering up the steep hill of Virtue [...]. As for the Sceptics, it appeared that they were extremely anxious to get there, but still could not quite make up their minds whether or not the island really existed.

Meier is a Swiss farmer, whose story centres around his alleged contacts with aliens from the Pleiades and his production of literally hundreds of relatively clear, colour photos of UFOs. Many ufologists regard these photos as simply too good to be true, and believe them to be fakes. The sceptics point to