Skepticism Quotes - Page 7

• I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.

  Walter Isaacson

  Thinking, Nuclear, Hussein

  "Buying the War". "Bill Moyers Journal", www.pbs.org. April 25, 2007.

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• These matters require what I think of as the Shakespearean cast of thought. That is to say, a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively skepticism about everything.... It keeps you constantly alert to every possibility.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Healthy, Matter

  Robertson Davies (1991). “Murther and Walking Spirits”, Penguin Group USA

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• All that the posture of skepticism accomplishes is to freeze the ego in an ignorantist poverty that never stretches or diversifies its resources of imagination or understanding. Any uncultured cretin can close his eyes and try to reduce the issues down to linear simplisms and say, "I am doubting, I am proving my magisterial or sovereign control over my own mind." Doubt is a useful and significant test of one's critical powers, but by itself it bears little if any significant cultural charge of enlightenment or satori; indeed it is the very opposite kind of thing.

  Kenny Smith

  Eye, Opposites, Issues

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• Every race man and woman should cast aside their skepticism regarding the Negro's ability as a motion picture star.

  Oscar Micheaux

  Stars, Men, Race

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

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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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• Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Blood, Religion, Pulse

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• A skeptic as to all ideas, including especially my own, I have never suffered a pang when the ideas of some other imbecile prevailed.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ideas, Envy, Imbeciles

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

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• Most of all we need an education which will create an educated mind. This is a mind not simply a repository of information and skills, but a mind that is a source of creative skepticism, characterized by a willingness to challenge old assumptions and to be challenged, a spaciousness of outlook, and convictions that are deeply held, but which new facts and new experiences can always modify.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Education, Skills, New Experiences

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.772, Best Books on

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• Freud, Jung thought, had been a great discoverer of facts about the mind, but far too inclined to leave the solid ground of "critical reason and common sense." Freud for his part criticized Jung for being gullible about occult phenomena and infatuated with Oriental religions; he viewed with sardonic and unmitigated skepticism Jung's defense of religious feelings as an integral element in mental health. For Freud, religion was a psychological need projected onto culture, the child's feeling of helplessness surviving in adults, to be analyzed rather than admired.

  Peter Gay

  Religious, Children, Psychological Needs

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• The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Sacrifice, Race, Heroism

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.193, Rowman & Littlefield

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• We assume a common sense as the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our knowledge, which is presupposed in every logic and every principle of knowledge that is not one of skepticism.

  Immanuel Kant

  Knowledge, Common Sense, Principles

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• All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and the most finely honed skepticism about government.

  Ellen Goodman

  Government, People, Independence

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• I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
  (i) this is worthless nonsense;
  (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
  (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
  (iv) I always said so.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Acceptance, Views, Interesting

  Journal of Genetics, Vol. 58, 1963.

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• People rise and fall to meet your level of expectations for them. If you express skepticism and doubt in others, they will return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they will go the extra mile trying to do their best.

  John C. Maxwell

  Believe, Fall, People

  John C. Maxwell, Jim Dornan (2013). “How to Influence People: Make a Difference in Your World”, p.37, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• With so many contradictory renditions of the biblical text, the public has lost confidence that we can actually know what the Bible says. It is an easy step from this skepticism to an indifference about what the Bible says.

  Leland Ryken

  Biblical, Steps, Indifference

  "Leland Ryken Interview: Differences in Bible Translations". Christian Publishing House Interview, christianpublishinghouse.co.

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• My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift.

  J Tillman

  Creativity

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• The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.

  Massimo Pigliucci

  Thinking, Ideas, Rejection

  Massimo Pigliucci (2010). “Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk”, p.75, University of Chicago Press

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• The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

  Cyril Connolly

  Civilization, Luxury, Goal

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• You know, the very strength of science is that it keeps us from the errors of mythos, from getting committed to a set of memes that we adopt because of congruence with what we think we know. Science demands skepticism.

  Tim Ward

  Thinking, Errors, Demand

  Tim Ward (2012). “Zombies on Kilimanjaro: A Father/Son Journey Above the Clouds”, p.112, John Hunt Publishing

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• Thus Pyrrhonism is not a sect of people who are persuaded of what they say, but it is a sect of liars.

  Antoine Arnauld

  Liars, People, Sects

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• Perfect Scepticismeis a disease incurable, and a thing rather to be pitied or laughed at, then seriously opposed. For when aman is so fugitive and unsettled that he will not stand to the verdict of his own Faculties, one can no more fasten any thing upon him, than he can write in the water, or tye knots in the wind.

  Henry More

  Writing, Wind, Perfect

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• To believe in luck ... is skepticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Luck

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• I think I developed a culture of healthy skepticism of claims of certainty on any side of the aisle. A sort of boldness in using economics no matter where it leads you in political circles, you know, rather than worrying about being left-wing or right-wing or biased or this or that.

  David Plotz

  Thinking, Circles, Wings

  Source: www.slate.com

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• Skepticism does not preserve us from foolhardy deeds.

  Mason Cooley

  Doe, Deeds, Foolhardy

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• Skepticism may undermine beliefs, but never belief.

  Mason Cooley

  May, Belief

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