Tim Ferriss Quotes

Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

Even if I stumble on to the absolute truth of any aspect of the universe, I will not realise my luck and instead will spend my life trying to find flaws in this understanding - such is the role of a scientist.

Scientific criticism has no nobler task than to shatter false beliefs.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

There is so much in this world to be skeptical about if you want to be a skeptical a**hole. I'm kind of a skeptical a**hole. But not about vaccines, that's just not one of them.

Indeed the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property.

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

Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else's position.

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.

As time passed I became an avid reader of popular scientific books, wanting to know as much as I could about the world in which I lived. Gradually I began to see a pattern of nonsense in much scientific writing. Scientific explanations given regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena simply didn't make sense.

How many times have I told you not to believe everything you hear? Seek truth for yourself.

I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

Skepticism is not a position; it's a process.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.

It's always good in science to say "Well how do you know that?" and "Are you really sure?" and "Could there be an exceptional case?"

Faith is the wors curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.

What is desperately needed... is the skepticism and the sense of history that a liberal arts education provides.

Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect.

To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.

The really important thing is learning how to sceptically question and rely on empirical evidence.

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument ... which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument ... which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane.