Good characters in fiction are the very devil. Not only because most authors have too little material to make them of, but because we as readers have a strong subconscious wish to find them incredible.

When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested...

[On scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss][Carl Friedrich] Gauss told his friend Rudolf Wagner, a professor of biology at Gottingen University, that he did not believe in the Bible but that he had meditated a great deal...

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

Skepticism is healthy in matters of the intellect, but disastrous in matters of the heart.

Deities are invented by fallible and finite beings in the hope and desire to create immortal perfection; unfortunately, such deities only reflect their creators and inspire their followers to similar imperfections.

The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on an even footing.

Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with...

You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside...

It is certainly true that all beliefs and all myths are worthy of a respectful hearing. It is not true that all folk beliefs are equally valid – if we’re talking not about an internal...

In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.

That was treated with similar skepticism.

If we want to set out on the aruous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first...

Many in the church have turned their back on serious study, and have embraced an anti-intellectualism which refuses to learn anything from scholarship at all lest it corrupt their pure faith. It is time to...

The doctrine of the sacredness of the soul sounds vaguely uplifting, but in fact is highly malignant. It discounts life on earth as just a temporary phase that people pass through, indeed, an infinitesimal fraction...

Intelligence analysts should be self-conscious about their reasoning processes. They should think about how they make judgments and reach conclusions, not just about the judgments and conclusions themselves.

[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired]This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our...

Philo of Larisa, head of the Academy in Athens….inspired Cicero with a passion for philosophy, and in particular for the theories of Skepticism, which asserted that knowledge of the nature of things is in the...

The president’s level of skepticism is high.

Different authors have different points of view. You can’t just say, ‘I believe in the Bible.

To survive one tragedy was to learn you cannot survive them all, and this knowledge was both a freedom and a great loss.

Life loves to reveal herself to the raw, courageous doubters; to those who are willing to live inside the question.

[T]he downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of...

When sceptical about reality, man tends to believe the absurd.

One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.

The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them.

I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.

But I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble....

You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (Jn 20:29) This is not a plea to accept what goes against reason, but it is an invitation to discover...

I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably.

It is easier to debunk a thousand myths than to write one true sentence.

In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

A skeptic, I would ask for consistency first of all.

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of...

Should we be good?” I almost always get an answer.

Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.

The only valid faith today is disbelief.

We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being...

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster.

Skepticism relieved two terrible diseases that afflicted mankind: anxiety and dogmatism.

I am not suggesting that history or scepticism by themselves can provide all the answers to all these questions. History, after all, is not a forward-looking discipline. It can only tell us what happened the...

Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way...

A mode of thought does not become ‘critical’ simply by attributing that label to itself, but by virtue of its content.

Isn’t atheism just another religion?’ No, it isn’t. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy,...

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist.

Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk. This is...

After that [father’s death] I never cried with any real conviction, nor expected much of anyone’s God except indifference, nor loved deeply without fear that it would cost me dearly in pain. At the age...

In post-Nietzschean spirit, the West appears to be busily undermining its own erstwhile metaphysical foundations with an unholy mélange of practical materialism, political pragmatism, moral and cultural relativism, and philosophical skepticism.