50 Quotes About Scepticism

Scientific knowledge advances haltingly and is stimulated by contention and doubt.

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate.

Cogitatur" depends on "Est;" and there's no avoiding it.

Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.

Religion is scepticism with God occupying the seat of reason.

No ghosts need apply. - Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.

It could always all be unreal - how could you ever tell otherwise? You took it on trust, in part because what would be the point of doing anything else? When the fake behaved exactly like the real, why treat it as anything different? You gave it the benefit of the doubt, until something proved otherwise.

. . . I don’t believe that celebrity spokeswomen get their hair colour from a box.