#skepticism

The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on - I am not too sure. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#skepticism #tolerance #men

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#skepticism #religion

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity. ↗

— Adam Smith

#city #had #i #pass #road

Skepticism has never founded empires, established principals, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been people of faith. ↗

— Edwin Hubbel Chapin

#been #changed #doers #empires #established

Well, I had a small degree, that little infection of skepticism about America which resides in the minds of even America's closest friends. That America can't be quite as good as it says it is. And why does it need so relentlessly to keep saying how good it is? ↗

— Robert MacNeil

#america #closest #closest friends #degree #does

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end to divine things. ↗

— Hippocrates

#religion #science #skepticism #men

Dean, you've been to Hell, I started the Apocalypse, and we're supposed to be possessed by an archangel and the devil. Now you're being skeptical? ↗

— Keith R.A. DeCandido

#apocalypse #dean-winchester #devil #hell #sam-winchester

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. ↗

— George Santayana

#freethinking #skepticism #nobility

Those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#pessimism #skepticism #faith

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

— Patrick Ness

#murder #skepticism #men