Quotes & Sayings About Being Skeptical

Rene Descartes, in order to raise skeptical doubts about even our firmest certainties, imagined that we might he under the influence of an evil demon, and more modern philosophers have speculated about the possibility of our being brains in vats. — Victor Reppert

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it's much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they're attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself. — Wislawa Szymborska

I think one reason is that philosophers are more insecure to speak accessibly because non-philosophers are skeptical that philosophers have any special expertise. After all, all people - not just philosophers - have attitudes and points of view on various philosophical questions, and they rather resent being told that there are professionals who can think about these things better. — Rebecca Goldstein

In terms of being a kind of popular artist figure and knowing how isolating that is, and knowing what it feels like to be skeptical of people, and to be taken advantage of, especially by your friends. That's a hard to pill to swallow, and we've been through that together, or watched each other go through it. It helps to have somebody that close to you who can relate. I can say with some confidence that I feel like Sky saved my life. — Zachary Cole Smith

I'm not an outgoing person. Compared to an average person, I am quite skeptical and pessimistic. This is different from being nervous. — Kim Jee-woon

Welles and I differed, however, in our interpretation of the results of the Munich Conference, he being optimistic, I skeptical. In a radio address on October 3, several days after the conference, in which he described the steps taken by the United States Government just prior to Munich, he said that today, perhaps more than at any time during the past two decades, there was presented the opportunity for the establishment by the nations of the world of a new world order based upon justice and upon law. It seemed to me that the colors in the picture were much darker. — H.G.Wells

Her way of being religious was as nonconformist as her nonreligious life had been. She was skeptical about many of the practices of the institutional church. She preferred to trust in the personal relationship she had grown to experience with God. This relationship transformed her ability to be in community and enabled her to see the essence of those around her: "The longer I live, the more I see God at work in people who don't have the slightest interest in religion and never read the Bible and wouldn't know what to do if they were persuaded to go inside a church."

For Dorothy [Day], the bread broken at Mass wasn't any more holy than the bread broken at shelters and soup kitchens. Church didn't happen in a building. It happened in the way people related to each other. Christ wasn't any more present in the liturgy than he was when on person listened with compassion to the pain of another. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

I believe in God and a higher power. I'm still not the religious type per se because religion tore my family apart. I'm still a little scared and skeptical being one with any faith. — Ja Rule

For the more skeptical of the Victorians, love performed some of the functions of the God whom they had lost. Faced with it, many of even the most hard-headed turned, for the moment; mystical. They found themselves in the presence of something which awoke in them that sense of reverence which nothing else claimed, and something to which they felt, even in the very depth of their being, that an unquestioning loyalty was due. For them love, like God, demanded all sacrifices; but like Him, also, it rewarded the believer by investing all the phenomena of life with a meaning not yet analysed away. We have grown used - more than they - to a Godless universe, but we are not yet accustomed to one which is loveless as well, and only when we have so become shall we realise what atheism really means. — Bertrand Russell

History repeats itself, in part because the genome repeats itself. And the genome repeats itself, in part because history does. The impulses, ambitions, fantasies, and desires that drive human history are, at least in part, encoded in the human genome. And human history has, in turn, selected genomes that carry these impulses, ambitions, fantasies, and desires. This self-fulfilling circle of logic is responsible for some of the most magnificent and evocative qualities in our species, but also some of the most reprehensible. It is far too much to ask ourselves to escape the orbit of this logic, but recognizing its inherent circularity, and being skeptical of its overreach, might protect the week from the will of the strong, and the 'mutant' from being annihilated by the 'normal'. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Be skeptical, but not as a social position, not claiming to be so intelligent that you cannot believe what other people say. It's not about being right and making everybody else wrong. No, you are skeptical because you know without a doubt that everybody lives in their own story, and in their story they have their own truth. But it's only truth in their mind, just as your truth is only truth in your mind, and nobody else's. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

The serpent's objective is clear. He seeks to drive a wedge of doubt into Adam and Eve's confidence in what God has told them. Satan knows the power of undermining a human being's confidence in what God has revealed. Sadly, the serpent's temptation was successful. Adam and Eve second-guessed God's trustworthiness and then rejected his command. They sinned and ate the forbidden fruit. This was the beginning of the fallen world we all experience. All generations following would have a natural bent for rebelling against God and being skeptical or indifferent to what he has said. To this day, Satan's objective has not changed. Though his questions look a little different at times, they all contain the same idea — Jon Morrison

You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. — Robert A. Heinlein

Do you know that most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death?" Rachel raised a skeptical brow as she spoke. "Let's just say, I've lost interest." -Being Brave Again — Anais Torres

It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life?
Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ? — Alain De Botton

I encourage active skepticism - when people are being skeptical because they're trying to identify the best course of action. They're trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people. — Tim Ferriss

You arrive at Formula One being very skeptical, how far can your talent deal with all this, and then you understand those guys are human and pretty reasonable, and finally succeeding in winning your first race, in circumstance as such, it was just an amazing moment. — Michael Schumacher

No atrocity was ever committed because people were being too reasonable, too skeptical, or too independently minded. — Sam Harris

Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.
- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp — Albert Einstein

The only emotions coming from him were light, playful - maybe with a little resignation wrapped in there, but positive feelings flowed across out bond.
"You are amused," I said. "What was in the vial? What are you so suddenly amused?"
He tipped his head. "It's...freeing, this shift in perspective. It's all rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but you want this - for campus, your new home, to be happy and free. Easy enough to assist with, so here I am."
"I had to drag you here."
"It wouldn't be a game otherwise. You would have been far more skeptical had I come willingly. You'd never have brought it and I'd have been made to stand elsewhere, relegated to being good."
I looked at him, then slipped my hand around his arm and squeezed. "I'd buy it."
Bonds wrapped around me - family, fondness, and something slightly darker and more fatalistic. He squeezed my hand beneath his, then pulled away before I could identify the last feeling. — Anne Zoelle

I've lost control of the simple act of being able to breathe. I'm hyperventilating.
"I don't need you to show me how to breathe," I say.
"You don't?" He looks skeptical.
"I think I can handle the simple act of breathing without you. — Adriana Law

I don't think people are skeptical. I think people appreciate the authenticity, actually. I think people are looking for authentic leaders these days and being yourself. — Mark T Bertolini

They thought it was essential to remain skeptical of all inherited truths, the idea being that the individual must find his own answer to every question. — Jostein Gaarder

If you think," he began, "that being sober and working steadily broke my bullshit meter, now you know better. I knew you were nailing Cross again from the moment you started back up."
Biting into my taco, I shot him a skeptical look.
"Eva honey, don't you think that if there were another man in New York who could bang it out all night like Cross, I would've found him by now? — Sylvia Day

On any mechanical repair job ego comes in for rough treatment. You're always being fooled, you're always making mistakes, and a mechanic who has a big ego to defend is at a terrific disadvantage. If you know enough mechanics to think of them as a group, and your observations coincide with mine, I think you'll agree that mechanics tend to be rather modest and quiet. There are exceptions, but generally if they're not quiet and modest at first, the works seems to make them that way. And skeptical. Attentive, but skeptical. But not egotistic. There's no way to bullshit your way into looking good on a mechanical repair job, except with someone who doesn't know what you're doing. — Robert M. Pirsig

I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom ... Actually Existing Islam ... which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in. — Salman Rushdie

I'd realized then just how strong our connection was, how perfectly we understood each other. I'd been skeptical about people being soul mates in the past, but at that moment, I knew it was true. And the emotional connection had come a physical one. Dimitri and I had finally given in to the attraction. We'd sworn we never would, but... well, our feelings were just too strong. Staying away from each other had turned out to be impossible. ~Rose, Pg.74 — Richelle Mead

The police can't protect consumers. People need to be more aware and educated about identity theft. You need to be a little bit wiser, a little bit smarter and there's nothing wrong with being skeptical. We live in a time when if you make it easy for someone to steal from you, someone will. — Frank Abagnale

Dean, you've been to Hell, I started the Apocalypse, and we're supposed to be possessed by an archangel and the devil. Now you're being skeptical? — Keith R.A. DeCandido

A generation of reporters saw the Washington Post win a Pulitzer for exposing the scandal, and many dreamed of being the next Woodward or Bernstein. A strong and skeptical press corps is good for democracy. Often the media's first instinct is to portray every story as a scandal, however, which presents a distorted picture of government and leaves the public cynical. — George W. Bush

You really want to go out to dinner?" Gabriel shot Rase a skeptical look out of the corner of his eye.
"As opposed to what?"
"Getting on your knees and begging me to beat you." There was no inflection in Gabriel's voice, no heat, and no emotion at all. He wasn't even looking at Rase.
... "I don't want one more than the other," he answered, fully aware that he was being challenged. "They're not interchangeable. I want them both."
Rase took a breath to calm the pounding in his chest and continued, even though Gabriel wouldn't look at him. "I want to go out to dinner with you, anywhere you want, on a date. And then I want to go back to your place or my place and I want you to beat me until I bleed. — Anah Crow

Scientists at first were skeptical that a kitten-type being could exist in the rare Martian atmosphere. As a test, two Earth kittens were put in a chamber that simulated the Martian air. The diary of this experiment is fascinating:
6:00 A.M.: Kittens appear to sleep.
7:02 A.M.: Kitten wakes, darts from one end of cage to another for no apparent reason.
7:14 A.M.: Kitten runs up wall of cage, leaps onto other kitten for no apparent reason.
7:22 A.M.: Kitten lies on back and punches other kitten for no apparent reason.
7:30 A.M.: Kitten leaps, stops, darts left, abruptly stops, climbs wall, clings for two seconds, falls on head, darts right for no apparent reason.
7:51 A.M.: Kitten parses first sentence of daily newspaper that is at bottom of chamber.
With the exception of the parsing, all behavior is typical of Earth kitten behavior. The parsing activity, which was done with a small ball-point pen, was an anomaly. — Steve Martin

Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded. — Bill O'Reilly

Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something. That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of the regrettable things I'd done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I'd been skeptical about, I didn't feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me. — Cheryl Strayed

Being skeptical is a good thing for a journalist, because it means you don't completely trust anyone. — Lemony Snicket

You expect me to believe that you're being held against your will?" I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're roaming around the castle freely."
"As are you." He turned away from me then. "Not all prisons have bars. You should know that better than anyone, Princess. — Amanda Hocking

An ideology can provide a satisfying narrative that explains chaotic events and collective misfortunes in a way that flatters the virtue and competence of believers, while being vague or conspiratorial enough to withstand skeptical scrutiny. — Steven Pinker

People like Bill Maher, who brags about being a cynic, it sickens me. I am the least cynical person I know, and I am very, very skeptical. — Penn Jillette

People always confuse intelligence with rational thinking and skepticism. I think it's a big mistake to assume anyone that follows a cult, religion, political party we don't like, etc is "stupid." But it's fair to say that if you follow something irrational, you are acting irrationally (at least as it pertains to that one specific act.) People can be smart - even brilliant - without necessarily being rational. Sometimes it's easy for people to be skeptical to most things, but with one or two glaring blind spots. If you don't spend a good portion of time playing devil's advocate with your own dearly held beliefs, odds are that there will be at least a couple of them that are irrational, even if you're one of the smartest people around. — Jon Moore