Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Skepticism

• The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?' We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Mistake, Errors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.391, Library of America

• Nothing shall warp me from the belief that every man is a lover of truth. There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature. The entertainment of the proposition of depravity is the last profligacy and profanation. There is no skepticism, no atheism but that. Could it be received into common belief, suicide would unpeople the planet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Lying, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.181, Graphic Arts Books

• To believe in luck, if it were not a solecism so to use the word believe, is skepticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mistake, Believe, Errors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3925, Delphi Classics

• Skepticism is slow suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Suicidal, Skepticism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.340, University of Georgia Press

• Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Causes, Skepticism, Cause And Effect

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.294, Cosimo, Inc.

• The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Religion, Atheism

  Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, March 04, 1831.

• Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Skepticism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Wallace E. Williams, Joseph Slater (1987). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men: seven lectures”, p.89, Harvard University Press

• To believe in luck ... is skepticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Luck, Skepticism

• Great believers are always reckoned infidels, impracticable, fantastic, atheistic, and really men of no account. The spiritualist finds himself driven to express his faith by a series of skepticisms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faith, Men, Fantastic

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.134

• God never jests with us, and will not compromise the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Knowledge, Compromise

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.29, Harvard University Press

• In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Differences, Heaven

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.54, Harvard University Press

• The new statement will comprise the skepticisms, as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For, skepticisms are not gratuitous or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in, and make affirmations outside of them, just as much as must include the oldest beliefs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Belief

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.181, Simon and Schuster

• The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faith, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.107, Harvard University Press

• Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Twenties, Saint, Four

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1954). “Basic Selections from Emerson: Essays, Poems & Apothegms”

• Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect. A man does not see, that, as he eats, so he thinks: as he deals, so he is, and so he appears; he does not see that his son is the son of his thoughts and of his actions; that fortunes are not exceptions but fruits; that relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always; no miscellany, no exemption, no anomaly,--but method, and an even web; and what comes out, that was put in.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Son, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.294, Cosimo, Inc.

• The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of skepticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Dwelling, Innovation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.264, Harvard University Press

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