Quotessence
Home / Topics / Sceptic Quotes

Sceptic Quotes

Browse 73 quotes about Sceptic.

Related topics

SkepticismMenIfsScepticismShouldWells

Sceptic Quotes

“While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.”

KnowsShouldPhilosophyScienceCertainKnowledgeKnowingIgnoranceOughtConceptsAffairPracticalsCertaintyUselessNot KnowingPrecisePrecisionArithmeticSceptic
Author:Bertrand Russell
Create image

“Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the start the dual role of prophet and gadfly. To his contemporaries it appeared frivolous and contradictory to perform as both superman and socialist, sceptic and believer, legalist and heretic, high-brow and mob-orator. But feeling the duty to teach as well as to mirror mankind, Shaw did not accept himself as a contradictory being.”

WellsEndsFeelingsAbleAcceptingRolesTeachSeeingMankindPositionDutyMirrorsIncludingBelieverProphetSocialistContradictoryBrowsHereticFrivolousOratorsDodgeScepticGadflies
Author:Jacques Barzun
Create image

“As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.”

MenPleasureCommonDarknessWiseMiserableVainDespiseSkepticismBlindnessHerdsBeing WisePlungeSceptic
Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think
Create image

“You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.”

MenHeartLongPhilosophyShowsRealityAliveHonestProveAssumptionSincereRealismSkepticismIdealismHonest ManRealistIdealistSceptic
Book:Essays in critical realism: a co-operative study of the problem of knowledge
Create image

“It has often been argued that absolute scepticism is self-contradictory; but this is a mistake: and even if it were not so, it would be no argument against the absolute sceptic, inasmuch as he does not admit that no contradictory propositions are true. Indeed, it would be impossible to move such a man, for his scepticism consists in considering every argument and never deciding upon its validity; he would, therefore, act in this way in reference to the arguments brought against him.”

IfsMenWayDoeSelfWould BeMovingMistakeImpossibleArgumentAbsolutesSkepticismConsideringPropositionsContradictoryValidityScepticismSceptic
Book:The Essential Peirce, Volume 1: Selected Philosophical Writings? (1867–1893)
Create image

“The sceptics, a kind of nomads, despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without any fixed plan or agreement.”

KindCultureNumbersPlansLandBrokenBrokeFixedAgreementSkepticismCivil SocietyNomadBroke UpSettlersSceptic
Book:Critique of Pure Reason: In Commemoration of the Centenary of Its First Publication
Create image

“The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling inhimself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.”

MenWellsPhilosophyFeelingsStudyDoubtOffersAccountsPhilosophicalSatisfactionRefuseConvictionInnocentRejectsSkepticismInclinationCarelessScruplesSceptic
Book:A Treatise of Human Nature
Create image

“[The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail.All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.”

IfsMenHumansEndsActionExistencePrinciplesCeaseMiserableHuman LifeAcknowledgeSkepticismDiscourseUnsatisfiedLethargySceptic
Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion
Create image

“The sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.”

MenEndsPhilosophyProblemLanguageGrowsExistenceProgressAtheismHe ManGeniusShapesSolutionsMusicalDenyTheologyInfidelityGovernanceOrderlyEpochSceptic
Book:The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley
Create image

“Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot.”

PeopleBookRealSoulUsedFallIndividualLove IsPoorChangedMetsIdealsFalling In LoveTrue LoveMortalsShakesMatesLove At First SightSoul MateGraspingArdentDeludedCynicBeen In LoveI Fall In LoveScepticZealotFalling In Love With You
Author:E. A. Bucchianeri
Create image

“To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.”

MenFirstsBelieveChristianSoundEssentialsLettersPhilosophicalChristian LivingSceptic
Book:The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author
Create image

“There may be rhetoric about the socially constructed nature of Western science, but wherever it matters, there is no alternative. There are no specifically Hindu or Taoist designs for mobile phones, faxes or televisions. There are no satellites based on feminist alternatives to quantum theory. Even that great public sceptic about the value of science, Prince Charles, never flies a helicopter burning homeopathically diluted petrol, that is, water with only a memory of benzine molecules, maintained by a schedule derived from reading tea leaves, and navigated by a crystal ball.”

MayMatterValuesReadingWaterMemoriesDesignTelevisionTheoryBallsWesternPhonesFeministBurningAlternativesTeaQuantumRhetoricSchedulesMobileCrystalsMoleculesSatellitesHelicoptersQuantum TheoryMobile PhonesScepticFaxPetrolCrystal BallTea Leaves
Author:Simon Blackburn
Create image

“I note that warmists are often banging on about the fact that sceptics like Christopher Booker and myself 'only' have arts degrees. But actually that's our strength, not our weakness. Our intellectual training qualifies us better than any scientist - social or natural sciences - for us to understand that this is, au fond, not a scientific debate but a cultural and rhetorical one.”

ArtFactsSocialNaturalDegreesIntellectualTrainingWeaknessScientistNotesDebateNatural ScienceBangingRhetoricalScepticArts Degrees
Author:James Delingpole
Create image

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

MenLifeFactsReligionReligiousAtheismAtheistAlcoholBelieverBeerDelusionSecularAgnosticSoberSkepticalDrankDisbeliefSkepticThere Is No GodAtheisticDrinking AlcoholCredulityFunny DrinkingBeer DrinkingDrinking BeerGreat DrinkingIf There Is A GodAlcohol DrinkingScience ReligionTheistAnti ReligiousJust BelieveGreat AlcoholThere Being No GodChristian AtheistFunny BeerThinking ManAnti ChristianFunny Beer DrinkingScepticAnti ReligionGod DelusionFunny ReligiousReligion In SocietyFunny AtheistAnti AtheistGreatest AtheistAnti GodDaily AtheistAnti ChristReligious HumorBeing SoberCollege DrinkingDrunk ManSober Up
Book:The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929
Create image

“Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.”

IfsShouldHumansFactsUseSeemsLawLostDifficultSidesChanceCasesRemainsAweCoincidenceAbsurdityConsolationSuperstitiousSuperhumanInefficiencySceptic
Book:A Coffin for Dimitrios/Judgement on Deltchev/Passage of Arms: Three Complete Novels in One Volume
Create image

“In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

IfsWorldWayNeedsTryingHumansRealSometimesFactsFeelingsMightCultureGivenFearHuman BeingsRolesKindnessCasesIssuesAtheismFiguresConcernToolsCriticismRageTendenciesPursueMotiveTemperQuestsSuperstitionsSupporterDeludedBelittlePseudoscienceScepticismScepticConsonantsReal Feelings
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image