Quotes about Skepticism

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Werner Heisenberg

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass[,] God is waiting for you.

This quotation is familiar, but there is a question concerning its veracity and source. It does not appear in Heisenberg's written works, but it is cited by Ulrick Hildebrand in 'Das Univerzum - Hinweis auf Gott?' in 'Ethos. Die Zeitschrift fur die Ganze Familie', Berneck, Schweiz: Schwengeler Verlag AG, No 10, Oktober 1988, 10

Gilbert K. Chesterton

When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

Mark Twain

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot

John Ralston Saul

Questioning is the great strength of democracy; the ability to doubt without losing face

Bertrand Russell

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Daniel Dennett

Postmodernism, the school of 'thought' that proclaimed 'There are no truths, only interpretations' has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for 'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.

Richard P. Feynman

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?" I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose - which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell.

Buddha

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

This principle, so important to the philosophy of science, was a major component of the philosophy of Spinoza—the part that had him excommunicated by the 3 major religions of the era.

Peter Greenaway

To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.

Carl Sagan

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.

George W. Bush

Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.

Lee Kuan Yew

I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God... So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God - nor deny that there could be one.

Jean de La Fontaine

Believe no evil till the evil's done

Carl Sagan

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Martin Luther

The devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because reason is the Devil's greatest whore.

Charles Bukowski

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Denis Diderot

Skepticism is the first step towards truth.

Thomas A. Edison

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

John Templeton

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I only believe in what I see and hear with my own eyes and ears.

Margaret Atwood

I'm not sure I really am a Humanist. I describe myself as a rigorous agnostic, which means that you cannot declare as a matter of material truth something that is in fact a matter of spiritual belief.

John Templeton

Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.

Joseph Stalin

I trust no one, not even myself.

Oscar Wilde

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Buddha

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it

This a particularly important quotation from a religious source. This view was espoused by Spinoza and for it he was excommunicated by the Jews, Christians and the Muslims. Although he was a devout Jew, he was accused of being irreligious because this view undermined the authority of the Rabbis, Priests, and Imams. See {624859}.

Skepticism Quotes