skeptical perspective Quotes

One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.

I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word "cynic" has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. "George, you're cynical." Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?

Cynicism is the other thing that goes with sentimentality.

I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family at the brutal bottom of the Great Depression. I suppose this early imprinting and conditioning made me a life-long radical. My education was mostly scientific, majoring in electrical engineering and applied math. Those imprints made me a life-long rationalist. I have become increasingly skeptical about, or detached from, the assumption that radicalism and rationalism are the only correct perspectives with which to view life, but they remain my favorite perspectives.

I have a healthy cynicism, but not anger.

The Lord's angel, Gebrail, dictated the Koran to Mohammed the Lord's Prophet. What a joke if all that holy book were only twenty-three years of listening to the desert. A desert which has no voice.

It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of skepticism.

To me there’s no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They’re all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.

I always feel the cynicism is reality with maybe an alternate spelling or something because I feel that I have real perspective on this particular issue of punishment in society.

The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.

I'm too cynical to be an optimist.

What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up.

Unbelief is as much of a choice as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn't require much of anything at all.

People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance.

The gurus come from the sickliest nation on earth to tell us how to live. And we pay them for it.

Cynicism is no more mature than naïveté. You're no more mature, just more burned.