Skeptic Quotes - Page 4

• The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many ... , myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter's presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy.

  James Q. Wilson

  Thinking, Views, People

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• Too many are not willing to give the Gospel a fair trial. They are too ignorant to speak wisely but not wise enough to speak ignorantly. A man is not a sinner because he is a skeptic; he is a skeptic because he is a sinner.

  Vance Havner

  Wise, Men, Giving

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• A skeptic is one who is willing to question any truth claim, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy of evidence.

  Paul Kurtz

  Consistency, Adequacy, Asking

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• Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.

  Dallas Willard

  Powerful, Thinking, Intellectual

  Dallas Willard (2012). “Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God”, p.283, InterVarsity Press

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• The president elect [Donald Trump] says that will lead to more investment and growth. Skeptics say the tax plan would explode deficits.

  Kelly McEvers

  Growth, President, Investment

  Source: www.npr.org

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• As for me, I am unfortunate enough not to posses a happy temperament like Najdorf, who views every happening in a rosy light and avoids any possibility of self-criticism. I am one of those unlucky skeptics who never overlook the dark side of even the happiest experience.

  Savielly Tartakower

  Dark, Light, Self

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• There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters. I don't mean to imply that they're all in that category at all. There are also those who are also not motivated by ideological resistance for any role of government. But I don't know of any arguments or any presenters of arguments that overturn the consensus that I think have gained any legitimacy.

  Al Gore

  Mean, Thinking, Government

  ""What in the Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?"". Interview with John Dickerson, www.slate.com. December 8, 2009.

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• In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious.

  Michael Shermer

  Cynical, Principles, Curious

  "What Is Skepticism, Anyway?" by Michael Shermer, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 31, 2013.

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• [This approach] displays the characteristic philosophical lust to vanquish the skeptic by arguing him out of his skepticism, without appeal to moral and political considerations or to the facts of everyday life. [...] But more often than not, if you give the skeptic everything he wants, then he will be successful in repulsing your attacks and terrorizing your position.

  Dale Jamieson

  Philosophical, Successful, Giving

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• There are always going to be skeptics. Prove them wrong.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Prove Them Wrong, Prove

  Twitter post from Apr 08, 2014

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• In this modern world of ours many people seem to think that science has somehow made such religious ideas as immortality untimely or old fashioned. I think science has a real surprise for the skeptics. Science, for instance, tells us that nothing in nature, not even the tiniest particle, can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation. If God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and insignificant parts of His universe, doesn't it make sense to assume that He applies it to the masterpiece of His creation, the human soul?

  Wernher von Braun

  Religious, Real, Thinking

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• For me, DJ culture - with its obsession with collecting records and archiving everything - predated the "cloud" concept with primitive material like the mixtape. Now we would call it "collaborative filtering" or something technical, but the impulse is the same - gather fragments, make something new. That is how you will bypass the climate-change skeptics: render them totally obsolete.

  DJ Spooky

  Clouds, Records, Mixtapes

  "DJ Spooky’s Icy Philharmonic". Interview with Hannah Levintova, www.motherjones.com. October 17, 2011.

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• Anytime you do something out of the ordinary, there will be skeptics. Everyone wants a reason why. That's fine. What's happened with me is just an accumulation of a lot of things.

  Brian Roberts

  Ordinary, Want, Reason Why

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• Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

  Abraham Lincoln

  Bible, Faith, Book

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• The skeptic, being a lover of his kind, desires to cure by speech, as best he can, the self-conceit and rashness of the dogmatists.

  Sextus Empiricus

  Self, Desire, Speech

  Sextus (Empiricus.) (1933). “Sextus Empiricus”, Loeb Classical Library

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• Suppose we wonder whether we should trust the deliverances of our basic epistemic competences. If those are indeed our basic competences, then in order properly to satisfy our curiosity we will inevitably rely on one or more of them. So, either we squelch our curiosity or we will have to fall into the circularity or regress to which the skeptic objects.

  Ernest Sosa

  Fall, Order, Curiosity

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

  Bill Moyers

  Lying, Fighting, Media

  Bill Moyers (2008). “Moyers on Democracy”, p.218, Anchor

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• Now if the religious skeptic is right, we can know nothing about God. And if we can know nothing about God, how can we know God so well that we can know that he cannot be known? How can we know that God cannot and did not reveal himself—and perhaps even through human reason?

  Peter Kreeft

  Religious, Reason, Agnosticism

  Peter Kreeft, Ronald K. Tacelli (2009). “Handbook of Christian Apologetics”, p.371, InterVarsity Press

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• In my experience, some of the biggest obstacles to becoming a successful entrepreneur aren't financial or structural - they are internal and psychological. It's important for dreamers to believe in themselves and their ideas, to fend off the skeptics and find others who will share in their dreams. Once you understand that being called "crazy" is a compliment, you realize that you can get beyond other people's opinions and zig when others zag.

  Linda Rottenberg

  Dream, Crazy, Believe

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• If you're uncertain and a [Donald] Trump skeptic, you think you know what, this administration is going to be better than I expected.

  Jason Chaffetz

  Thinking, Administration, Trump

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• The Bible has, amazingly- no doubt with supernatural grace-survived its critics. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, the better read it becomes.

  Charles Colson

  Tyrants, Grace, Doubt

  Charles Colson, Harold Fickett (2008). “The Faith: What Christians Believe, why They Believe It, and why it Matters”, p.55, Harper Collins

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• The skeptics said you can't put on a costume in the middle of New York - which isn't true, because everyone's in a costume here.

  Avi Arad

  New York, Costumes, Middle

  Source: www.denofgeek.com

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• You never question the truth of something until you have to explain it to a skeptic.

  Donald Miller

  Donald Miller (2007). “Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God”, p.73, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• 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.

  Ann Druyan

  Sacred, Train, Ifs

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• There are people who are wired to be skeptics and there are people who are wired to be optimists. And I can tell you, at least from the last 20 years, if you bet on the side of the optimists, generally you’re right.

  Marc Andreessen

  Years, People, Lasts

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