Scepticism Quotes

• Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Faith
  • Beginning
  • Scepticism

• I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.

  

  Tom Stoppard
  • Lost
  • Capacity
  • Gentle

• It is true that 'I seem to see a table' does not entail 'I see a table'; but 'I seem to feel a pain' does entail 'I feel a pain'. So scepticism loses its force - cannot open up its characteristic gap - with regard to that which ultimately most concerns us, pleasure and pain.

  

  Galen Strawson
  • Pain
  • Pleasure
  • Concern

• A rational reaction against the irrational excesses and vagaries of scepticism may, I admit, readily degenerate into the rival folly of credulity. To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right.

  

  William E. Gladstone
  • Constitution
  • Rational
  • Irrational

• The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom.

  

  James Martineau
  • Doubt
  • Inspiration
  • Honest

• Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

  

  Blaise Pascal
  • Wrong
  • Scepticism
  • Fortifies

• You don’t get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in scepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies.

  

  Ben Aaronovitch
  • Hobbies
  • Investigating
  • Bastard

• I find that the critics of voluntary service are all too often those who are prepared to accept such services when they require them but deride them with cynicism and scepticism when they see others helping and being helped.

  

  Eva Hart
  • Critics
  • Services
  • Voluntary

• Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

  

  Blaise Pascal
  • Pride
  • Humility
  • Scepticism

• The method of this great philosopher Kant can serve as a pointer to the satisfying solution to our problem. Of course we don’t have to slavishly adhere to Kant's form, but we must match his method to the nature of our own subject socialism, displaying the same critical spirit. Our critique must be direct against both a scepticism that undermines all theoretical thought, and a dogmatism that relies on ready-made formulas.

  

  Eduard Bernstein
  • Problem
  • Spirit
  • Philosopher

• Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.

  

  Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Healthy
  • Observation
  • Scepticism

• There is but one indefectibly certain truth , and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing, the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists.

  

  William James
  • Certain
  • Consciousness
  • Phenomenon

• The idea so commonly found that scepticism leads to toleration arises from considering the effects of scepticism in the intellectual who takes no active part - not its effects in the man of action. In the man of action, moral relativism and scepticism as to the absolute and universal value of his priunciples are no obstacle to a fanatical belief in their immediate value as his own clan at the actual moment; they do not weaken in the least his will to impose his principles. How should he glimpse a soul of truth in the principles of others, entitling them to respect, when he does not believe in noble origins of this kind even for his own principles?

  

  Bertrand de Jouvenel
  • Respect
  • Action
  • Value

• We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.

  

  Blaise Pascal
  • Scepticism
  • Idea Of Truth

• Let us not fear that the issues of natural science shall be scepticism or anarchy. Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the Throne.

  

  Edwin Hubbell Chapin
  • Truth
  • Science
  • Universe