Top 442 Skeptical Quotes & Sayings

I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

The modern world tends to be skeptical about everything that makes demands on man's higher faculties. But it is not at all skeptical about skepticism, which demands hardly anything.

Always be skeptical about simplicity.

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.

Everyone is skeptical. Only the media are not skeptical, but, then, they were also not skeptical when the administration put out the line that coordinated embassy attacks around the globe on the anniversary of 9/11 were just rowdy movie reviews. Numbers on a TV screen won't prevent millions of Americans from noticing that they're unemployed.

I'm beginning to be skeptical of my own skepticism.

It's not wrong to be skeptical. I was one who participated in the debate on Iraq and voted against the resolution because I was skeptical of the intelligence. But that was based on looking at the facts, analyzing the case in as rational and as logical way as you can, not simply concluding or dismissing facts.

I was skeptical about the whole idea of my being in a film.

People do tend to be extremely skeptical, especially of YouTubers - and rightly so.

Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical.

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.

I'm skeptical of any mission that has advertisers at its centerpiece.

I'm pretty skeptical about Hollywood and its fascination with the sequel and the franchise.

I'm fairly skeptical of movements, organizations, and institutions in general.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

One, I am skeptical of the effectiveness of nutritional supplements.

The true American patriot is by definition skeptical of the government.

For any CEO that is skeptical at all: you have to create a social enterprise today!

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

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

I'm very skeptical about everything. That's how I've always been.

Cut through the ridicule and search for factual information in most of the skeptical commentary and one is usually left with nothing. This is not surprising. After all, how can one rationally object to a call for scientific examination of evidence? Be skeptical of the skeptics.

What is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.

Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.

There is so much in this world to be skeptical about if you want to be a skeptical a**hole. I'm kind of a skeptical a**hole. But not about vaccines, that's just not one of them.

Everyone is going to be skeptical if they don't know what is happening.

I readan article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children tobe skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything.... I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax.

In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.

Even the Lord had skeptical members of His party.

There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.

If historians are not skeptical, they are nothing.

We must be skeptical even of our skepticism.

Be Skeptical, but learn to listen.

Great intellects are skeptical.

Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.

I'm a pretty skeptical person, and I question a lot.

I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.

I'm very skeptical about the good intentions of Milosevic.

People are skeptical of many televangelists, and I'm sensitive to that.

People are always alert to any change and skeptical by nature.

If there be a skeptical star I was born under it. Yet I have lived all my days in complete astonishment.

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.

We can be skeptical, suitably skeptical, and we can trust news outlets, some more than others.

'The Skeptical Environmentalist' was much more the idea of the scientific argument of realizing that we need to be skeptical about a lot of these stories that we hear and to put them in context.

Everybodys saying, be skeptical of Wikipedia. That is true. They should also be skeptical of everything. We should all be critical consumers of the media.

I believe I'm growing skeptical of cynicism.

In a Photoshopped world, only the skeptical eye prevails.

I am willing to believe, but I do not have the gift of faith. I'm skeptical.

Trump campaigned as somebody who was very skeptical of the multinational deals. He was supportive of Brexit. He was very skeptical of NATO. So what we saw of President Trump in Europe was what we saw of President Trump as a candidate.

Being a skeptical and thoughtful consumer of polls is essential.

We're very skeptical of people who are too perfect.

I'm skeptical that the novel will be 're-invented.'

I'm not a very skeptical person.

Philosophers are smart, analytical, and skeptical. For these reasons they are relatively unbiased.

My job is to be skeptical: skeptical of people like Edward Snowden and skeptical of the U.S. government.

Over the last few decades, I've grown more skeptical about a few things in which I used to have more faith. I believe as much in the necessity of, and the possibility of, revolution as I ever did. At the same time, I've grown more skeptical about poetry's role in it or art's contribution to it, and I've grown more skeptical about the university. Universities are big companies, and they're disciplinary in the way that any big institution is. I've found that the political militancy that the professoriate has mostly been fairly repressive of what I take to be necessary politics.

I am deeply skeptical of re-entering into Iraq's civil war.

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.

I saw the 'Balls of Fury' script, and I was skeptical at first.