Skeptic Quotes - Page 6

• It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Discipline, Materialism, Old Fashioned

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.213, Simon and Schuster

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• The doctrine of foreordination is not a doctrine of repose; instead, it is a doctrine for second- and third-milers, and it will draw out of them the last full measure of devotion. It is a doctrine for the deep believer but it will bring only scorn from the skeptic.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Doctrine, Lasts, Devotion

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• Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics.

  Norman Finkelstein

  Holocaust, Wonder, Nonsense

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• Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Mean, Doubters, Sole

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.28, Vintage

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• The abstractionist and the materialist thus mutually exasperating each other, and the scoffer expressing the worst of materialism, there arises a third party to occupy the middle ground between these two, the skeptic, namely. He finds both wrong by being in extremes. He labors to plant his feet, to be the beam of the balance.

  Marsilio Ficino

  Party, Two, Feet

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• 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”

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• Conformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time.

  Isaiah Berlin

  War, Tyrants, Yesterday

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• I would not call myself an optimist, even though I would aspire to be. I am innately a skeptic. There's kind of an incessant dissatisfaction that I have, that I'm always trying to either expose or fight against or wrestle with.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Fighting, Always Trying, Kind

  "Carrie Brownstein Discusses Her Memoir". Interview with Jenn Pelly, pitchfork.com. October 27, 2015.

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• The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge. Skeptics and believers are alike. At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Adventure, Self, Common Sense

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• I appear as a skeptic, who believes that doubt is the great engine, the great fuel of all inquiry, all discovery and all innovation.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Believe, Discovery, Innovation

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• These days it seems that physical truth can easily be rearranged, rethought, or re-created outright. Any image can be made pristine, all the warts can be removed. But returning to the source of a thing - the real source - means the photographer has to watch, dig, listen for voices, sniff the smells, and have many doubts. My life in photography has been lived as a skeptic.

  Jerome Liebling

  Photography, Real, Mean

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• Preaching Christianity to skeptics without first setting out the praeambula fidei [preambles of faith], and then complaining when they don’t accept it, is like yelling in English at someone who only speaks Chinese, and then dismissing him as a fool when he doesn’t understand you. In both cases, while there is certainly a fool in the picture, it isn’t the listener.

  Edward Feser

  Yelling, Chinese, Fool

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• I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Believe, People, Effort

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• We are such skeptics that we find it difficult to believe in God and angels and a spiritual afterlife, but a moment of fear makes our spirit so vulnerable that it allows us to believe in something beyond that.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Spiritual, Believe, Angel

  Source: collider.com

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• I urge the media to start referring to climate skeptics as what they really are: climate assholes.

  Bill Maher

  Media, Climate, Referring

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• I'm a skeptic. ...Global Warming it's become a new religion. You're not supposed to be against Global Warming. You have basically no choice. And I tell you how many scientists support that. But the number of scientists is not important. The only thing that's important is if the scientists are correct; that's the important part.

  Ivar Giaever

  Numbers, Choices, Support

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• Cut through the ridicule and search for factual information in most of the skeptical commentary and one is usually left with nothing. This is not surprising. After all, how can one rationally object to a call for scientific examination of evidence? Be skeptical of the skeptics.

  Bernard Haisch

  Cutting, Examination, Information

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• If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse sceptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.

  Tom Wigley

  Thinking, Yale, Documentaries

  "Rorting data is hell, Nino" by Andrew Bolt, www.heraldsun.com.au. November 24, 2009.

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• As time passes on
  I turn the next page
  To discover a new me
  while I continue to age.
  I may no longer be
  Who I was long ago
  But I still can matter -
  That much I know.
  With a new set of tools
  I have gathered from time -
  I keep looking forward
  To more mountains to climb.
  My best is not over
  As the skeptics might say -
  I just learn how to conquer
  In a much wiser way.
  So don't sell me short -
  I am not nearly done -
  I CAN STILL MATTER -
  I've only just begun.

  Tom Krause

  Retirement, Long Ago, Age

  Tom Krause, “I Can Still Matter”

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• Spirituality can be severed from both vicious sectarianism and thoughtless banalities. Spirituality, I have come to see, is nothing less than the thoughtful love of life. [Spirituality for the Skeptic]

  Robert C. Solomon

  Life, Thoughtful, Insightful

  Robert C. Solomon (2006). “Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life”, p.12, Oxford University Press

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• Faith is not an art. Faith is not an achievement. Faith is not a good work of which some may boast while others can excuse themselves with a shrug of the shoulders for not being capable of it. It is a decisive insight of faith itself that all of us are incapable of faith in ourselves, whether we think of its preparation, beginning, continuation, or completion.

  Karl Barth

  Art, Atheist, Thinking

  "A Karl Barth Reader".

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• Your holiest pain comes from your yearning to change yourself in the exact way you'd like the world around you to change.... Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics.

  Rob Brezsny

  Sweet, Pain, Balance

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.9, Frog Books

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• Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle.

  R. C. Sproul

  Cynical, Battle, Cynicism

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• A Christian is not a skeptic. A Christian is a person with a burning heart, a heart set aflame with certainty of the resurrection.

  R. C. Sproul

  Christian, Heart, Burning

  R. C. Sproul (1991). “Following Christ”, Tyndale House Pub

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• The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, & the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions - surer & more certain than sense & life itself.

  Martin Luther

  Heart, Doubt, Spirit

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