quotations about skepticism
All forms of modern skepticism have a common philosophical foundation. Their philosophy denies that we can know any thing except that which we learn through the senses directly, or through conclusions deduced from the senses. We know that there is a sun because we see it; we know approximately its weight and its distance from the earth, because by long processes of reasoning we reach conclusions on those subjects from phenomena which we do see. What we do not thus see, or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell, or thus conclude from what we have seen, or heard, or touched, or tasted, or smelled, is said to belong to the unknown and unknowable. This is the basis of modern skepticism. It is the basis, too, of much of modern theology. It is the secret of the " scientific method." By this method we conclude the existence of an invisible God from the phenomena of life exactly as we conclude the existence of an invisible ether from the phenomena of light. But the God thus deduced is like the ether, only an hypothesis. It is quite legitimate to offer a new hypothesis; and the scientist will be as ready to accept one hypothesis as another, provided it accounts for the phenomena. This philosophy, pursued to its legitimate and logical conclusion, issues in the denial that man is a religious being; or possesses a spiritual nature; or is any thing more than a highly organized and developed animal.
LYMAN ABBOTT
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A Study in Human Nature
Many people feel duty-bound to express skepticism as if it were an automatic badge of honor and intellectual superiority. I'd done the same thing in the past, so I could understand the attitude.
JANE ROBERTS
Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness
Skepticism is always a wise default position to start one's inquiry. But if no knowledge is being acquired, skepticism quickly morphs into stubborn ignorance.
CHARLES HUGH SMITH
"What the Mainstream Doesn't Get About Cryptocurrencies", Daily Reckoning, August 12, 2017
Skeptics always stumble at truth.
PIERRE BIZOT
attributed, Day's Collacon
Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
"On My Friendly Critics", Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies