Skepticism Quotes

• Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Healthy, Observation, Accurate

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “Collected Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Delphi Classics)”, p.9809, Delphi Classics

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• Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.

  David Suzuki

  Education, Positive Energy, Important

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• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

  Aristotle

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  Attributed to Aristotle in "Religion and the Pursuit of Truth" by Lowell Lindsay Bennion, p. 52, 1959.

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• It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to UNlearn.

  Isaac Asimov

  Learning, Accepting, Theory

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• Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Atheist

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• The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Mean, Thinking, Religion

  Miguel de Unamuno (1925). “Essays and Soliloquies”

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• The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Lying, Independent, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.3, Basic Books

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• The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

  Aristotle

  Truth, Science, Men

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• The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Sin, Blind

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2006). “Huxley's Autobiography and Essays”, p.176, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect...

  George Santayana

  Intellect, Chastity, Ripeness

  "Scepticism and Animal Faith". Book by George Santayana, 1923.

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• We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.

  Carl Sagan

  Lying, Imagination, Wish

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 1: "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean", 1990.

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• If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

  Carl Sagan

  Country, Children, Teaching

  "The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Book by Carl Sagan, ch. 25: "Real Patriots Ask Questions", 1995.

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• 

  The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Inspiring, Education, Wisdom

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.

  Robert K. Merton

  Inspirational, Faith, Science

  Robert K. Merton (1973). “The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations”, p.265, University of Chicago Press

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• There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

  George Santayana

  Doubt, Atheism, Would Be

  George Santayana (1950). “Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts”

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• You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.

  Carl Sagan

  Fun, Science, People

  "The Burden of Skepticism". Book by Carl Sagan, 1987.

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• There is no better soporific and sedative than skepticism.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Science, Questioning Beliefs, Scientific Truth

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: The Critique of the Traditional Morality and the Philosophy of the Past”, p.76, e-artnow

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• Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt and misery; the worst in reckless defiance; the plurality, in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands.

  John Ruskin

  Birthday, Powerful, Lying

  "Selections From the Works of John Ruskin".

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• Skepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Believe, Men, Soul

  Thomas Carlyle, Edwin Markham (1842). “On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History: Six Lectures, Reported, with Emendations and Additions”, p.215

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• The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Cynical, Mind, Causes

  "Symposium On Epic Of Thomas Jefferson:Embargo Act Of 1807 & The Quest For Limited Government Over Big Government". Book by Festus Ogunbitan (p. 1498), April 11, 2014.

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• I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Too Much, Possibility

  Letter to Herbert Spencer, March 22, 1886.

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• Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.

  George Santayana

  Profound, Doubt, Criticism

  "Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies". Book by George Santayana, 1922.

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• No matter how we may single out a complex from nature...its theoretical treatment will never prove to be ultimately conclusive... I believe that this process of deepening of theory has no limits.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, May, Matter

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• My advice to those who which to learn the art of scientific prophesy is not to rely on abstract reason, but to decipher the secret language of Nature from Nature's documents: the facts of experience.

  Max Born

  Art, Advice, Secret

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• There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

  Allan Bloom

  Believe, Entering, Students

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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