Skepticism Quotes

If Christians always seemed to be the most intelligent and the most righteous of men, I'd be a skeptic.

She (historian Barbara Tuchman) draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human ability as amused and saddened by human folly.

Some skeptics believe religious people are religious because they fear Hell. It's about as fair as saying skeptics are skeptics because they fear the ridicule of modern society.

To point out nonepistemic motives in another’s view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt upon a person’s connection to the world as it is.

Skepticism precludes one from believing many things, but not from loving many things.

An agnostic is a creature that is religiously skeptical whenever it is told that God exists … or that He doesn’t.

I pity the man who praises God only when things go his way.

Naturally, I always place my word over anyone else's simply because I know why I said what I said.

The only valid faith today is disbelief.

Never hold a belief longer than you can hold your breath.

Trust acquired through challenged skepticism is infinitely more solid and lasting than passive acceptance.

In times of war, skepticism can be just cause for execution.

But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.

History warns us ... that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

It seems the more we know, the less we believe.

God is always trying to give blessings to us, but our minds are usually too full to receive them.

The best way to destroy the decrepit is to build the glorious.

Believing or not makes no difference to the Absolute of Things That Be. But it does to you. For you shall live and die accordingly. A wise person, or a fool. Choose.

Skepticism is my nature. Free Thought is my methodology. Agnosticism is my conclusion. Atheism is my opinion. Humanitarianism is my motivation.

You can't just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children.

How could any Lord have made this world?... there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death, the poor. There was no treachery too base for this world to commit... No happiness lasted.

To survive one tragedy was to learn you cannot survive them all, and this knowledge was both a freedom and a great loss.

After all, the girl actually had faith in something, which was more than most people had in these dark times. It was wrong to destroy it.

A story is a wondrous invention.

He was the least spiritual of all the monks here, accepting nothing without proof. This skepticism was simultaneously his greatest asset and his greatest impediment.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others...

The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on an even footing.

Dean, you've been to Hell, I started the Apocalypse, and we're supposed to be possessed by an archangel and the devil. Now you're being skeptical?

When we get to Heaven, we can try a monarchy, perhaps." John Hay

Always doubtful is the one who always looks for certainty.

INDECISION NOW!' isn’t a battle cry that’s going to rouse anybody’s blood. But I sometimes wonder if it isn’t the sanest one.

There is nothing worse than certainty. Doubt makes us weak. That is why it’s so important. I’ve wasted too much of my life trying to be powerful.

Take it with a whole shaker of salt, a grain won't be close to enough.

[T]he longer you stay skeptical, doubtful, intellectually uncomfortable, the better it is for you.

The love of humanity does not prevent us from being good journalists.

It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.

Travel was a species of warfare.

Scepticism does not abolish the world, it turns it into questions.

So, your god is the only god? Okay, but then, so is my dog.

What good is ye world when ye canst not livest hither.

Children throw tantrums because they've imagined their 'father in heaven' does so. And because, their inherited religious book has, in written, shown them so.

Believe what you wish, but prove what you can.

Unanimity makes me itchy. It almost always hides a grave. I started digging.

Skepticism means not intellectual doubt alone but moral doubt.

With most people doubt about one thing is simply blind belief in another.

Skeptics are never deceived.

Believe nothing and be on your guard against everything.